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ESSAYS    ON    NATURE 
AND    CULTURE  ##  BY 

HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 


NEW  YORK:  PUBLISHED  BY 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
MDCCCXCVI 


/tj   1/2- 


Copyright,  1896, 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY, 

/i  //  rights  reserved. 


JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 


JOHN    BURROUGHS. 


Of 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER.  PAGE 

I.  THE  ART  OF  ARTS  ....  7 

II.    EDUCATION 16 

III.  TIME  AND  TIDE      ....  26 

IV.  MAN  AND  NATURE  .   '  .      .      .  36 
V.  THE  RACE  MEMORY     ...  47 

VI.  THE  DISCOVERY  TO  THE  SENSES  56 
VII.  THE  DISCOVERY  TO  THE  IMAGI 
NATION      67 

VIII.  THE  POETIC  INTERPRETATION  .  78 

IX.  THE  MORAL  IMPRESS    ...  88 

X.  THE  RECORD  IN  LANGUAGE      .  96 

XI.  THE  INDIVIDUAL  APPROACH     .  106 

XII.  PERSONAL  INTIMACY      .      .      .  117 

XIII.  THE     FUNDAMENTAL     CORRE 

SPONDENCES    131 

XIV.  THE  CREATIVE  FORCE  .      .      .  141 
XV.  THE  GREAT  REVELATION    .      .  151 

XVI.  FORM  AND  VITALITY     .      .      .  161 


Contents. 


CHAPTER. 

XVII.    THE  METHOD 

XVIII.  DISTINCTNESS  OF  INDIVIDUALITY 

XIX.  VITAL  SELECTION     .... 

XX.  REPOSE    ....... 

XXI.  THE  UNIVERSAL  LIFE    .      .      . 

XXII.  THE  UNCONSCIOUS  LIFE     . 

XXIII.  SOLITUDE  AND  SILENCE  . 

XXIV.  UNHASTING,  UNRESTING 
XXV.    HEALTH 

XXVI.  WORK  AND  PLAY     .      .      .      . 

XXVII.  WORK  AND  BEAUTY       .      .      . 

XXVIII.  THE  RHYTHMIC  MOVEMENT     . 

XXIX.  THE  LAW  OF  HARMONY     .      . 

XXX.  THE  PROPHECY  OF  NATURE 


172 
183 
194 

220 
231 
243 
253 
264 
274 
284 
295 

3°4 


Chapter   I. 

The  Art  of  Arts. 

supreme  art,  to  which  all 
-•-  the  arts  rightly  understood  and 
used  minister,  is  the  art  of  living. 
At  all  times  and  in  all  places  the 
materials  of  art  are  present;  but  the 
men  who  can  discern  the  possible 
uses  of  these  materials,  and  who  pos 
sess  the  instinct  and  the  training  to 
put  them  to  these  uses,  are  always 
few  in  number  and  often  widely  sep 
arated  in  time.  The  material  out  of 
which  art  is  made  is  everywhere; 
but  the  artist  appears  only  at  inter 
vals.  In  like  manner,  the  myste 
rious  force  which  we  call  life  is  put 
7 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

into  every  man's  hand  ;  but  the  men 
who  discern  its  highest  and  finest 
possibilities,  who  get  out  of  it  the 
richest  growth,  and  who  put  into  it 
the  noblest  personal  energy,  are  few 
in  number.  The  great  majority  use 
life  as  the  artisan  uses  his  material ; 
a  very  small  minority  use  it  in  the 
spirit  and  with  the  power  of  the 
artist.  The  artisan  is  often  sincere, 
diligent,  and  fairly  skilful  ;  but  he  is 
imitative,  conventional,  and  devoid 
of  creative  power.  The  artist,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  free,  individual, 
constructive;  he  sees  the  higher  pos 
sibilities  of  the  material  which  he 
commands,  and  the  most  delicate  uses 
of  the  tools  which  he  employs  ;  he 
discerns  new  meanings,  evokes  un 
suspected  powers,  reveals  fresh  feel 
ing,  and  gives  the  familiar  and  the 
commonplace  a  touch  of  immortal- 
8 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

ity  by  recombining   or  reforming  it 
in  a  creative  spirit. 

The  art  of  living  is  the  supreme 
art  because  it  presents  the  widest 
range  of  material,  and  the  most 
varied,  delicate,  and  enduring  forms 
of  activity.  Sculpture,  painting, 
music,  architecture,  literature,  taken 
together,  are  an  expression  of  the 
human  spirit  realizing  itself  and  its 
surroundings  in  the  language  of 
beauty  ;  morality  is  the  attempt  of 
the  same  spirit  to  discern  and  live 
in  right  relations  to  other  human 
spirits  ;  religion,  its  endeavor  to  , 
establish  arid  sustain  fellowship  with 
the  Divine  Spirit;  philosophy,  its 
effort  to  discover  that  final  generali 
zation  which  shall  put  that  spirit 
in  command  of  the  order  of  the 
universe;  and  history,  the  record  of 
the  struggle  of  that  spirit  to  achieve 
9 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

self-consciousness  and  self-mastery. 
For  the  real  history  of  man  is  to  be 
found  in  his  creative  works,  —  in 
Homer  rather  than  in  Thucydides  ; 
in  the  "  Divine  Comedy"  rather  than 
in  Villari,  in  Shakspeare's  plays 
rather  than  in  the  works  of  Hume 
and  Green.  Whatever  view  of  the 
authority  of  the  Old  Testament  one 
may  take,  it  is  certain  that  in  the 
noble  literature  which  goes  under 
that  title  there  is  a  deeper,  clearer, 
and  fuller  disclosure  of  the  human 
spirit  in  its  effort  to  realize  itself 
and  live  its  life  than  in  all  the  his 
torical  works  that  have  been  written. 
For  the  real  history  of  man  on  this 
earth  is  not  the  record  of  the  deeds 
he  has  performed  with  his  hands, 
the  journeys  he  has  made  with  his 
feet,  the  material  things  he  has 
fashioned  with  his  mind,  but  the 

10 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

record  of  his  thoughts,  feelings,  in- 
|  spirations,  aspirations,  and  experi 
ence.  It  is  the  story  of  his  spirit 
which  is  significant;  and  the  account 
of  the  things  he  has  made  and  done 
is  of  value  chiefly  as  these  material 
products  illustrate  his  spiritual  activ 
ity  and  development.  The  beauti 
ful  line  on  the  Greek  vase  is  of  far 
higher  value  than  acres  of  crumbling 
brick  or  stone  in  the  valleys  of 
Asia,  because  the  Greek  was  so 
much  more  the  master  of  his  mate 
rials,  and,  therefore,  so  much  more 
the  artist  than  his  contemporary  in 
the  farther  East. 

The  story  of  Athens,  compara 
tively  weak  and  poor,  is  dearer  to 
our  hearts  than  the  story  of  the  rich 
and  powerful  Phoenician  towns,  be 
cause  it  represents  and  embodies  so 
much  more  intellect  and  soul. 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

In  a  very  deep  sense  poetry  is 
truer  than  the  chronicles,  and  the 
great  epics  tell  us  far  more  of  the 
character  and  life  of  the  races  which 
produced  them  than  the  most  trust 
worthy  histories. 

Mythology,  once  relegated  to 
nurseries  or  drawn  upon  for  enter 
tainment  in  the  chimney  corner,  has 
become  one  of  the  most  important 
contributions  to  the  history  of  man, 
not  because  it  has  kept  the  record  of 
fact,  but  because  it  registers  a  pro 
foundly  interesting  stage  of  spiritual 
development.  Although  unhistorical 
as  a  chronicle  of  fact,  it  is  eminently 
historical  as  a  report  of  the  dawning 
of  great  truths  on  the  minds  of 
primitive  men. 

The  interest  in  the  human  story 
centres,  therefore,  not  on  what  man 
has  done  at  any  particular  time,  but 

12 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

on  what  he  has  been  ;  not  on  the 
work  of  his  hands,  but  on  the  dis 
coveries  of  his  spirit.  It  is  not  as  a 
mere  doer  of  deeds  that  he  appears 
in  the  long  record  of  history,  but  as 
a  mysterious  and  many-sided  spirit, 
striving  to  attain  self-knowledge  arid 
self-development.  If  he  were  a  mere 
doer  of  deeds, — a  fighter,  builder, 
colonizer,  —  his  story  would  read  like 
one  of  those  old  chronicles  put 
together  by  faithful,  plodding  souls 
in  the  earlier  periods  of  almost  every 
modern  literature,  and  which  remain 
enduring  examples  of  dry,  literal,  in 
artistic  fidelity  ;  but  man  is  some 
thing  more  than  a  doer  of  deeds,  and 
the  story  of  his  life  on  earth,  instead 
,  of  being  a  dreary  chronicle  of  unre- 
I  lated  events,  is  a  marvellous  drama  of 
I  thought,  feeling,  and  action.  It  is  a 
Shakspearian  tragedy  rather  than  a 
'3 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

mediaeval  chronicle  ;  and  the  protago 
nist  in  the  great  world  play,  on 
which  the  curtain  is  always  rising 
and  falling,  is  the  human  spirit  striv 
ing  to  understand  and  master  itself, 
and  to  understand  and  master  its 
surroundings  by  knowledge,  by 
obedience,  and  by  the  forth-putting 
of  the  creative  power. 
•  In  this  struggle  for  self-realization 
a  few  men  become  artists  :  they  learn 
the  possibilities  o-  the  materials  with 
which  they  deal ;  they  put  themselves 
into  fruitful  relations  with  the 
things  which  can  nourish  and  the 
forces  which  can  inspire  them  ;  and 
they  put  forth  the  creative  energy  that 
is  in  them  freely  and  continuously. 
They  discover  the  educational  quality 
of  experience,  the  sustaining  and 
teaching  power  of  Nature,  the  cumu 
lative  force  of  training ;  and  they 
14 


The  Art  of  Arts. 

work  out  their  lives  with  intelli 
gence,  foresight,  and  resolute  adjust 
ment  to  the  best  conditions.  They 
are  not  more  prosperous  than  other 
men,  so  far  as  external  fortunes  are 
concerned  ;  but  they  are  greater, 
nobler,  and  more  masterful.  Their 
supremacy  lies  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  artists  in  the  management  and 
uses  of  life  ;  they  are  fresh  in  feeling, 
true  in  insight,  creative  in  spirit, 
productive  in  activity.  They  live 
deeply  and  they  produce  greatly. 
Such  a  man,  despite  all  faults,  was 
Goethe ;  a  man  who  discovered  in 
youth  that  life  ought  not  to  be  a 
succession  of  happenings,  a  matter 
of  outward  fortunes,  but  a  cumula 
tive  inward  growth  and  a  cumulative 
power  of  productivity. 


Chapter  II. 

Education. 

T?  VERY  art  has  its  own  methods 
•*-'  of  training,  its  distinctive  dis 
cipline,  its  secrets  of  experience  and 
skill  ;  and  mastery  depends  upon 
practice  of  these  methods,  submis 
sion  to  this  discipline,  possession  of 
the  fruits  of  this  experience,  and 
command  of  this  skill.  Between 
the  untrained  man  and  the  artist,  in 
every  department  of  creative  work, 
there  must  be  an  educational  process 
more  or  less  severe  and  prolonged. 
This  necessity  is  imposed  on  men  of 
genius  no  less  rigorously  than  on 
men  of  talent,  and  the  exceptions 
will  be  found,  on  closer  scrutiny,  to 
16 


Education. 

be  apparent  rather  than  real.  In 
music,  it  is  true,  there  have  been 
boys  of  marvellous  gifts,  whose  skill 
antedated  all  systematic  training ; 
but  even  in  such  cases  as  that  of 
Mendelssohn  the  early  promise  was 
late  fulfilled  in  mature  performance 
mainly  because  thorough  training 
steadied,  supplemented,  and  devel 
oped  a  natural  aptitude.  In  cases 
which  are  more  to  the  point  for  the 
present  purpose,  —  in  such  a  case, 
for  instance,  as  that  of  Burns,  who 
wrote  exquisite  lyrics  without  any 
formal  education  for  such  delicate 
and  difficult  work,  —  the  exclusion 
of  a  person  from  the  operation  of  the 
law  is  apparent  rather  than  real,  and 
is  explained  by  the  very  inadequate 
sense  in  whicn  the  word  education  is 
commonly  used. 

For  it  is  constantly  assumed  that 
17 


Education. 

education  is  a  formal  process,  fol 
lowing  well-defined  lines  and  carried 
on  by  academic  methods  ;  while,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  education  is  as  indi 
vidual  as  temperament  and  gift,  and 
may  take  as  many  forms.  A  sound 
education  is  not  a  specific  kind  of 
training ;  it  is  the  training  which 
qualifies  pre-eminently  for  a  specific 
kind  of  work^j  Artists  especially 
need  and  employ  the  widest  latitude 
of  choice  in  the  selection  of  educa 
tional  material  and  methods  ;  and,  in 
the  end,  every  genuine  artist  is  self- 
educated.  He  has  discovered,  in 
other  words,  the  methods  which  help 
him  most  efficiently  to  master  the 
difficulties  of  his  art  and  to  command 
its  secrets  of  skill.  If  the  story  of  a 
gifted  boy  like  Burns  is  read  with 
insight,  it  will  be  found  that  he  pre 
pared  himself  for  his  work  by  an 
18 


Education. 

education  not  the  less  definite  and 
effective  because  it  was  wholly  indi 
vidual,  personal,  and  unacademic. 
Burns  discovered  very  early  the  hours, 
the  places,  the  experiences,  the  moods 
which  enriched  and  inspired  him, 
and  having  discovered  them  he  pur 
sued  and  possessed  them.  This  was 
his  education  ;  and  it  was  as  genuine 
and  thorough  for  its  purpose  as  that 
which  Milton  found  at  Cambridge, 
and,  later,  in  his  Italian  travels,  or  as 
that  which  his  great  successor,  Ten 
nyson,  secured  for  himself  two  cen 
turies  after  within  the  ivy-covered 
walls  of  the  same  venerable  uni 
versity. 

Lincoln's  style  is  a  constant  mar 
vel  to  those  who  have  not  studied 
his  habits  and  career  for  the  purpose 
of  discovering  his  educational  pro 
cesses  ;  for  such  pieces  of  prose  as 


Education. 

the  second  Inaugural  Address  and 
the  Gettysburg  Address  were  never 
written  or  spoken  without  thorough 
and  long-continued  training.  To 
those,  however,  who  have  made  such 
a  study,  there  is  no  mystery  about 
Lincoln's  command  of  lucid,  flexi 
ble,  and  beautiful  English.  If,  as  a 
boy,  he  had  definitely  thought  out 
a  method  of  training  in  the  use  of 
language,  he  could  hardly  have  im 
proved  upon  the  simple  expedients, 
the  life-long  habits,  and  the  wonder 
ful  opportunities  of  practice  which 
he  employed  or  which  came  to  him. 
No  deep,  great,  productive  quality 
or  power  comes  to  a  man  by  acci 
dent;  for,  while  the  capacity  for 
developing  such  a  quality  or  power 
must  be  inborn,  its  unfolding  de 
pends  not  only  on  skill,  but  also 
upon  character ;  upon  a  general 
20 


Education. 

ripening  of  the  nature,  as  well  as 
upon  the  gaining  of  many  kinds  of 
dexterity.  In  the  case  of  every  man 
who  uses  such  a  power  in  a  great 
and  fruitful  way,  or  develops  such 
a  quality  on  a  noble  and  command 
ing  scale,  there  is  some  adequate 
kind  of  education  ;  for  mastery 
comes  only  after  obedience,  service, 
and  knowledge ;  and  greatness  al 
ways  waits  upon  life. 

These  truths  have  special  signifi 
cance  where  they  are  applied  to  the 
supreme  art,  the  art  of  living.  For 
this  most  difficult  and  comprehen 
sive  of  all  the  arts  rests  upon  laws 
as  definite  and  certain  in  their  opera 
tion  as  the  laws  which  underlie 
music,  literature,  sculpture,  painting, 
or  architecture;  and  no  man  can 
master  this  highest  art  without 
learning  the  nature  of  these  laws  and 


21 


Education. 

living  by  them.  In  order  to  secure 
from  one's  surroundings  the  most 
vital  and  enriching  influence  and 
power,  and  to  give  out  the  pur 
est  and  most  productive  personal 
energy  over  the  longest  possible 
time,  one  must  submit  to  the  most 
severe  and  prolonged  education. 
The  greater  the  achievement,  the 
more  stern  and  long-sustained  the 
training  which  prepares  for  it ;  and 
since  no  achievement  is  so  great  as  a 
rich,  noble,  and  productive  life,  noth 
ing  exacts  such  heroic  toil  and 
patience  as  a  preliminary  condition. 
In  the  splendor  of  such  a  work  as 
the  cc  Divine  Comedy  "  it  is  easy  to 
forget  the  relentless  bitterness  of 
experience  which  deepened  the  poet's 
nature  to  the  capacity  of  a  vision 
of  suffering  and  of  redemption  at 
once  so  appalling  and  so  sublime. 

22 


Education. 

The  path  to  such  an  achievement 
led,  as  the  women  of  Verona  de 
clared,  through  the  fires  of  hell. 
Looking  at  a  career  like  Goethe's, 
so  steadily  productive,  so  varied  in 
its  interests,  so  wide  in  its  activities, 
so  commanding  in  its  influence,  one 
too  easily  overlooks  the  immense 
and  tireless  toil  of  a  life  which  was 
without  haste  but  which  was  also 
without  rest. 

The  process  by  which  one  be 
comes  an  artist  in  the  unfolding 
and  use  of  his  life  is  the  process  of 
self-culture  ;  of  conscious  effort 
towards  the  attainment  of  a  clearly 
perceived  end ;  of  deliberate  selec 
tion  of  some  influences  and  interests 
and  deliberate  rejection  of  others ; 
of  intelligent  and  sustained  toil.  In 
the  pursuit  of  this  highest  art,  as 
in  the  pursuit  of  the  lesser  arts, 
23 


Education. 

mastery  never  comes  by  nature  or 
by  chance ;  it  comes  always  as  the 
result  of  self-culture  long  and  intelli 
gently  sustained  and  followed. 

In  the  common  use  of  the  word 
culture,  as  in  that  of  the  word  edu 
cation,  there  is  an  element  of  nar 
rowness  and  untruth  which  must  be 
eliminated  before  its  true  and  rich 
meaning  can  be  appropriated.  For 
culture,  instead  of  being  an  artificial 
or  superficial  accomplishment,  is  the 
natural  and  inevitable  process  by 
which  a  man  comes  into  possession 
of  his  own  nature  and  into  real  and 
fruitful  relations  with  the  world 
about  him.  It  is  never  a  taking  on 
from  without  of  some  grace  or  skill 
or  knowledge ;  it  is  always  an  un 
folding  from  within  into  some  new 
power ;  the  flowering  of  some  qual 
ity  hitherto  dormant ;  the  absorp- 
24 


Education. 

tion  of  some  knowledge  hitherto 
unappropriated.  The  essence  of 
culture  is  not  possession  of  informa 
tion  as  one  possesses  an  estate,  but 
absorption  of  knowledge  into  one's 
nature,  so  that  it  becomes  bone  of 
our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  It 
means  the  enrichment  and  expansion 
of  the  personality  by  the  taking  into 
ourselves  of  all  that  can  nourish  us 
from  without.  Its  distinctive  char 
acteristic  is  not  extent,  but  quality 
of  knowledge  ;  not  range,  but  vital 
ity  of  knowledge ;  not  scope  of 
activity,  but  depth  of  life.  It  is,  in 
a  word,  the  process  by  which  a  man 
takes  the  world  into  his  nature  and 
is  fed,  sustained,  and  enlarged  by 
natural,  simple,  deep  relations  and 
fellowship  with  the  whole  order  of 
things  of  which  he  is  part. 


Chapter  III. 

Time  and  Tide. 

of  the  most  perfect  repartees 
ever  made  was  that  which  came 
from  that  master  wit,  Alexandre 
Dumas,  when,  in  answer  to  the 
question,  "  How  do  you  grow  old  so 
gracefully  ?  "  he  replied  :  "  Madam, 
I  give  all  my  time  to  it.'*  The  finer 
qualities  and  the  higher  achievements 
involve  this  element  of  time.  They 
demand  labor,  they  impose  discipline ; 
but  they  depend,  in  the  end,  not 
upon  toil  or  obedience,  but  upon  a 
slow  ripening.  The  man  of  culture 
is  a  man  of  ripe  nature, — sound, 
sweet,  mature.  The  crudity  of  haste, 
26 


Time  and  Tide. 

of  exaggeration,  of  unformed  taste, 
of  servility  to  the  fact,  of  deference 
to  lower  standards  has  gone  out  of 
him  ;  and  in  its  place  has  come  that 
slow,  sure,  complete  maturing  which 
resembles  nothing  so  closely  as  the 
ripening  of  a  fruit ;  that  final  ex 
pression  of  the  life  of  the  tree,  to 
which  all  its  forces  converge  and  in 
which  its  vitality  bears  a  perfect  pro 
duct.  The  process  by  which  a  man 
absorbs  the  world  into  himself,  so 
that  it  enriches  and  liberates  him,  is 
a  vital  and  not  a  mechanical  process  ; 
and  because  it  is  vital  it  requires 
time,  and  is  fulfilled  by  the  long- 
continued  and  largely  unconscious 
process  of  growth. 

Nothing    brings    into    such    clear 
relief  the  prevalent  misconception  of 
the  meaning  of  culture  as  its  identi 
fication  with  diligence  of  acquisition 
27 


Time  and  Tide. 

or  with  studied  pursuit  of  the  graces 
and  accomplishments  of  the  intellec 
tual  life,  instead  of  its  identification 
with  a  process  of  growth  patiently- 
pursued  for  a  life-time  and  as  deeply 
rooted  in  the  order  of  things  as  the 
growth  of  an  oak.  For  genuine 
culture  is  not  a  cult  or  a  fad,  and 
does  not  create  a  select  class  sepa 
rated  from  their  fellows  by  superior 
delicacy  of  taste  and  greater  refine 
ment  of  habit ;  it  is  the  freeing  of 
a  man  from  the  limitations  of  his 
temperament  and  conditions;  first, 
by  the  expansion  of  his  nature  by 
a  vital  knowledge  of  himself  and  the 
world,  and  next  by  bringing  his  spirit 
and  methods  into  such  harmony 
with  the  laws  of  life  that  his  activity 
touches  the  highest  point  of  intelli 
gence,  variety,  and  energy.  Culture 
does  not  issue  in  a  type  reproduced 
28 


Time  and  Tide. 

in    all    its   votaries,  but  in   a    more 
distinct  and  powerful  personality. 

The  master  of  the  art  of  living 
must  understand  clearly  the  nature 
and  the  possibilities  of  the  materials 
with  which  he  deals  before  he  can  re- 
combine  or  reform  them  with  plastic 
freedom,  or  with  the  inspiring  ease 
of  the  creative  energy.  To  know 
the  world  and  himself,  therefore,  is 
the  first  task  of  the  artist  in  life;  and 
this  knowledge  comes  to  him  as 
the  result  of  culture.  It  is  a  knowl 
edge  so  deep,  so  rich,  and  so  vital 
that  it  cannot  be  secured  by  any 
mechanical  or  purely  intellectual 
process  ;  it  involves  the  action  of 
the  whole  nature ;  of  the  imagina 
tion,  the  emotions,  the  reason,  the 
will.  It  is  not  a  knowledge  of 
things,  but  of  life  :  to  secure  it  is  not 
an  exercise  of  memory,  but  a  putting 
29 


Time  and  Tide. 

forth  of  the  soul.  It  is  not  to  be 
had  by  conning  text-books,  although 
these  have  their  uses ;  it  is  to  be  had 
by  living  relationship  with  the  thing 
one  studies.  The  master  in  any 
department  is  not  he  who  has  its 
facts  at  his  fingers'  ends,  but  he  who 
commands  its  inward  power  and  has 
the  secrets  of  its  perfection  in  his 
heart.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  deeper 
distinction  between  men  than  that 
which  exists  in  the  quality  and  kind 
of  their  knowledge  of  their  surround 
ings.  For  some  men  see  nothing 
but  the  shell  of  things,  others  con 
stantly  discern  the  soul  ;  to  some 
everything  is  common,  to  others  all 
things  are  uncommon.  Shakspeare 
did  not  see  a  different  world  from 
that  which  his  contemporaries  looked 
upon  ;  he  saw  the  same  world  with  a 
clearer  vision.  That  which  to  them 
30 


Time  and  Tide. 

seemed  common  and  without  signifi 
cance,  to  him  was  full  of  meaning 
and  shone  or  darkened  with  fate. 
He  stood  in  vital  relationship  to  his 
time  and  his  fellows  ;  his  contem 
poraries  stood  in  merely  formal  re 
lationship  with  them. 

There  is  nothing  which  comes  to 
a  man  comparable  in  interest,  rich 
ness,  and  beauty  with  this  gradual 
absorption  of  the  power  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  world  about  him 
into  himself  by  culture;  by  holding 
mind,  heart,  and  soul  open  year  after 
year  to  the  influences^  that  stream 
in,  to  the  knowledge  constantly 
proffered,  to  the  exhaustless  vitality 
which  floods  the  world,  and  free 
access  to  which  is  just  as  much  a 
privilege  as  the  right  to  breathe  the 
air  or  see  the  sky.  The  man  who 
sets  out  to  ripen  his  nature  by  con- 
Si 


Time  and  Tide. 

tact  with  literature,  for  instance, 
must  prepare  himself  for  a  long, 
arduous,  and  inspiring  task.  For 
he  must  not  only  familiarize  himself 
with  an  immense  number  of  literary 
works,  but  there  must  be  in  him  a 
slow  but  ceaseless  growth,  constantly 
bringing  him  into  closer  contact 
with  the  men  he  studies  ;  until,  at 
last,  he  stands  on  their  plane,  sees 
the  world  with  their  eyes,  and  so 
masters  their  secret.  So  far  as  compre 
hension  is  concerned  he  stands  on  a 
level  with  them.  But  no  one  gains 
Dante's  level  without  sharing  in  a 
measure  Dante's  experience.  The  in 
tellectual  equipment  may  be  secured 
in  a  comparatively  brief  period,  but 
the  vital  equipment  comes  only  with 
the  ripening  years.  It  is  idle  to 
study  Dante  unless  one  lives  up  to 
and  into  his  experience.  There  is, 
32 


Time  and  Tide. 

therefore,  something  in  every  art 
from  which  the  immature  student  is 
absolutely  shut  out.  No  ardor  of 
work  can  compass  it,  and  no  fervor 
of  devotion  snatch  it  before  the  pre 
destined  hour  ;  time,  and  time  alone, 
brings  it  within  reach  of  the  eager 
hand.  The  man  must  ripen  before 
he  can  possess  the  highest  and  the 
best.  There  is  no  toil  more  arduous 
than  that  of  a  life  of  aspiration  ;  but 
there  is  no  toil  which  so  soon  be 
comes  play  by  that  transformation 
which  makes  the  task  done  by  inten 
tion  the  free  and  joyful  outflow  of 
one's  native  energy  and  force. 

We  are  slow  to  recognize  and 
swift  to  disregard  this  necessity  of 
growth  in  addition  to  that  of  work ; 
but  in  every  life  expansion  must 
supplement  activity.  We  must  lie 
fallow  before  we  can  produce  greatly, 
3  33 


Time  and  Tide. 

and  we  must  enrich  ourselves  in 
wardly  before  we  can  spend  gener 
ously  in  creative  work.  The  length 
of  the  process  varies  with  the  natural 
richness  and  openness  of  the  individ 
ual  nature ;  but  no  man,  however 
gifted,  escapes  the  process.  The 
gradual  ripening  of  Shakspeare  is  one 
of  the  most  impressive  facts  in  that 
spiritual  biography  which  is  written 
in  his  plays ;  the  youth  who  wrote 
cc  Romeo  and  Juliet "  could  not  have 
written  cc  The  Tempest."  The  ripen 
ing  of  years,  rich  in  vital  fellowship 
with  life  and  men  and  nature,  sepa 
rates  the  ardent  fancy  of  the  earlier 
from  the  mature  and  splendid 
imagination  of  the  later  work. 
cc  Between  Shakspeare  in  his  cradle," 
says  Mr.  Higginson,  "and  Shak 
speare  in  *  Hamlet '  there  was 
needed  but  an  interval  of  time ;  " 
34 


Time  and  Tide. 

but  that  period  of  ripening  and  ex 
pansion  was  as  necessary  to  the  writing 
of  "  Hamlet"  as  was  the  genius  of 
the  poet.  To  know  the  world  vitally 
and  creatively  one  must  know  it  not 
only  with  the  mind  but  with  the 
soul ;  one  must  live  with  it  year  by 
year,  and  slowly  ripen  as  it  yields 
that  fruit  of  knowledge  which  grows 
only  on  the  tree  of  life. 


35 


Chapter   IV. 

Man  and  Nature. 

'T^HE  material  of  culture  is  as 
wide  and  various  as  life  itself; 
and  to  the  man  who  puts  himself  in 
right  relations  with  his  fellows  and 
the  world  nothing  is  devoid  of  edu 
cational  quality.  It  is  one  of  the 
characteristics  of  true  culture  that  it 
not  only  adds  steadily  to  one's 
knowledge,  but  as  steadily  develops 
the  capacity  for  acquiring  knowledge, 
and  the  instinct  for  discovering  in 
every  person,  relation,  event,  and 
experience  something  of  permanent 
value  as  a  means  of  enrichment. 
And  this  process  goes  on  until  the 
36 


Man  and  Nature. 

great  stream  of  life,  as  it  sweeps  past 
and  eddies  about  the  individual 
mind,  becomes  a  true  Pactolian  river, 
bringing  its  wealth  from  a  thousand 
sources  and  draining  a  world-wide 
experience  for  the  enlargement  of 
each  open  soul.  When  a  man  has 
established  such  a  relation  with  the 
order  which  surrounds  him  that 
every  contact  with  that  order  dis 
ciplines,  informs,  and  broadens  him, 
he  has  come  into  harmony  with  the 
purpose  which  that  order  is  working 
out,  and  has  raised  himself  above  the 
changes  of  external  fortune  and  the 
happenings  of  the  material  life. 

Among  the  most  important  of 
these  ministers  to  culture  —  religion, 
art,  literature,  science,  human  rela 
tions,  activity,  and  experience  —  Na 
ture  holds  a  first  place.  For  Nature 
antedates  all  the  arts  and  sciences, 
37 


Man  and  Nature. 

and  was  involved  in  those  earliest 
experiences  which  attended  the  main 
tenance  of  the  individual  life  before 
any  social  relations  were  possible. 
The  intimacy  between  man  and 
Nature  began  with  the  birth  of  man 
on  the  earth,  and  becomes  each  cen 
tury  more  intelligent  and  far-reach 
ing.  To  Nature,  therefore,  we  turn 
as  to  the  oldest  and  most  influential 
teacher  of  our  race  ;  from  one  point 
of  view  once  our  task-master,  now 
our  servant ;  from  another  point  of 
view,  our  constant  friend,  instructor, 
and  inspirer.  The  very  intimacy  of 
this  relation  robs  it  of  a  certain 
mystery  and  richness  which  it  would 
have  for  all  minds  if  it  were  the 
reward  of  the  few  instead  of  being 
the  privilege  of  the  many.  To  the 
few  it  is,  in  every  age,  full  of  wonder 
and  beauty ;  to  the  many  it  is  a 
33 


Man  and  Nature. 

matter  of  course.  The  heavens 
shine  for  all,  but  they  have  a  chang 
ing  splendor  to  those  only  who  see 
in  every  midnight  sky  a  majesty  of 
creative  energy  and  resource  which 
no  repetition  of  the  spectacle  can 
dim.  If,  as  has  often  been  said,  the 
stars  shone  but  once  in  a  thousand 
years,  men  would  gaze,  awe-struck 
and  worshipful,  on  a  vision  which  is 
not  less  but  more  wonderful  because 
it  shines  nightly  above  the  whole 
earth.  In  like  manner  and  for  the 
same  reason,  we  become  indifferent 
to  that  delicately  beautiful  or  sub 
limely  impressive  sky  scenery  which 
the  clouds  form  and  reform,  com 
pose  and  dissipate,  a  thousand  times 
on  a  summer  day.  The  mystery, 
the  terror  and  the  music  of  the 
sea  ;  the  secret  and  subduing  charm 
of  the  woods,  so  full  of  healing  for 
39 


Man  and  Nature. 

the  spent  mind  or  the  restless  spirit; 
the  majesty  of  the  hills,  holding  in 
their  recesses  the  secrets  of  light  and 

O 

atmosphere ;  the  infinite  variety  of 
landscape,  never  imitative  or  repeti 
tious,  but  always  appealing  to  the 
imagination  with  some  fresh  and 
unsuspected  loveliness  ;  —  who  feels 
the  full  power  of  these  marvellous 
resources  for  the  enrichment  of  life, 
or  takes  from  them  all  the  health, 
delight,  and  enrichment  they  have  to 
bestow  ? 

It  is  a  great  moment  in  a  man's 
experience  when  he  awakes  to  the 
wonder  of  the  world  about  him,  and 
begins  to  see  it  with  his  own  eyes, 
and  to  feel  afresh  its  subtle  and  pen 
etrating  charm.  From  that  moment 
the  familiar  earth  and  sky  become 
miracles  once  more,  and  his  spirit 
is  hourly  recreated  in  their  presence. 
40 


Man  and  Nature. 

There  have  been  stern  and  heroic 
men  to  whom  the  beauty  of  the 
world  has  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of 
indifference ;  but  such  an  indiffer 
ence  always  involves  a  permanent  and 
serious  loss  of  breadth,  knowledge, 
vision,  and  power.  A  man  may  get 
to  his  journey's  end  by  the  light  of  a 
lantern,  but  he  is  less  secure  than  the 
man  who  travels  by  daylight ;  and 
he  loses  the  landscape.  In  the  last 
analysis  it  will  be  found  that  the 
training  and  development  of  the  hu 
man  mind  have  depended  so  largely 
upon  Nature  that  no  man  can  be 
said  to  have  really  compassed  life  or 
comprehended  his  own  being  who 
has  failed  to  come  into  conscious 
relations  with  this  greatest  of  teachers. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  the  exaggera 
tion,  the  hardness,  the  limitation,  the 
morbidness  of  so  much  mediaeval 
41 


Man  and  Nature. 

thought,  and  of  the  scholastic  phi 
losophy  and  theology  which  were  its 
products,  were  due  in  large  measure 
to  the  attempt  to  understand  man 
isolated  from  his  surroundings  and 
to  interpret  his  life  apart  from 
Nature.  There  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that  man  issued  out  of 
Nature  by  a  long  process  of  develop 
ment;  it  is  certain  that  Nature  min 
gled  with  his  dawning  life,  and  not 
only  sustained  but  unfolded  that  life; 
and  it  is  also  certain  that  in  body, 
mind,  and  soul  man's  life  is  so  in 
volved  to-day  with  the  life  of  Nature 
that  the  two  are  inseparable,  and  can 
not  be  understood  apart  from  each 
other. 

Man  is  incomprehensible  without 
Nature,  and  Nature  is  incomprehen 
sible  apart  from  man.     For  the  deli 
cate  loveliness    of  the    flower    is   as 
42 


Man  and  Nature. 

much  in  the  human  eye  as  in  its  own 
fragile  petals,  and  the  splendor  of  the 
heavens  as  much  in  the  imagination 
that  kindles   at    the   touch    of  their 
glory  as  in  the  shining  of  countless 
worlds.      Nature  would  be  incompre 
hensible   without   her  interpreter,  — 
whose    senses    supplement    her    own 
wonderful  being  ;  whose  imagination 
travels    to  the  far-off  boundaries   of 
her  activity  ;   whose  thought  masters 
and  demonstrates  her  order  ;   whose 
skill  utilizes  her  forces ;   and  whose 
patient  intelligence  brought  to  bear 
century  after  century  on  her  vast  and 
all-embracing  life,  has  not,  it  is  true, 
uncovered  the  source  of  her  vitality, 
but    has     gone    far     to    discern    its 
methods  of  manifestation.      Man,  on 
the  other  hand,  cannot  comprehend 
a  single  chapter  of  his  history  with 
out    appealing    to    Nature;     cannot 
43 


Man  and  Nature. 

trace  a  single  developed  faculty  back 
to  its  rudimentary  stage  without  rind 
ing  Nature  present  at  every  step  in 
that  evolution  and  largely  directing 
it ;  cannot  retrace  the  course  of  any 
skill,  art,  industry,  trade,  or  occupa 
tion  without  coming  upon  Nature  at 
every  turn.  The  story  of  his  slow  rise 
from  barbarism  to  civilization  is  very 
largely  the  story  of  his  contact  with 
Nature  ;  and  when  he  turns  to  his 
inward  life  and  studies  the  religions, 
sciences,  and  arts  by  which  he  lives 
and  expresses  himself  and  his  energy, 
he  finds  Nature  everywhere  present 
as  the  chief  influence,  the  constant 
companion,  or  the  authoritative  and 
commanding  teacher. 

This  slow  education  of  the  race  at 
the  foot  of  Nature  is  not  the  only 
training  to  which  men  have  been  sub 
dued,  but  it  has  been  so  constant,  so 
44 


Man  and  Nature. 

gradual,  so  intimate,  that  by  a  true 
process  of  absorption  man  has  become 
a  part  of  Nature  and  Nature  a  part 
of  man.  They  have  lived  together 
so  many  thousands  of  years,  and  in 
such  substantial  unity,  that  they  are 
no  longer  separable.  They  are 
bound  together  in  the  great  order  or 
movement  of  the  universe  ;  the  in 
exorable  obedience  of  Nature  to  the 
law  of  her  being  has  become  charac 
ter  in  her  companion  and  pupil ;  the 
beauty  of  her  landscape  is  repro 
duced  in  his  arts  ;  the  changes  of  her 
seasons,  which  constantly  set  his  life 
in  a  new  framework,  are  recorded  in 
his  poetry;  the  majesty,  mystery, 
and  order  of  her  manifold  life  under 
lie  his  religions ;  her  products  and 
forces  sustain  his  life,  spread  the  roof 
over  his  head,  furnish  the  materials 
for  all  his  fabrics,  and  turn  the  wheels 
45 


Man  and  Nature. 

which  transform  them  into  things  of 
beauty  and  of  use.  All  that  man  is 
and  has  done,  has  depended  largely 
upon  his  relationship  with  the  sub 
lime  power  which  kindled  the  stars 
above  the  cradle  of  his  infancy,  and, 
now  in  his  maturity,  makes  him  mas 
ter  of  forces  which  are  lifting  him 
above  drudgery  and  making  him 
poet,  artist,  and  creator. 


Chapter  V. 

The  Race   Memory. 

"\1S7HEN  one  strives  to  realize 
through  the  imagination  what 
this  intercourse  between  Nature  and 
the  race  has  been,  and  how  much 
each  individual  owes  to  it,  there  rises 
in  the  heart  not  only  a  sense  of  awe 
and  wonder,  but  a  deep  feeling  of  in 
timacy  and  tenderness.  Through  a 
thousand  forgotten  channels  each  life 
has  been  nourished  and  expanded  by 
a  ministry  which,  beginning  with  the 
first  man,  is  still  untiring ;  serving  the 
welfare  of  the  race,  this  ministry  has 
still  its  special  and  peculiar  teaching 
and  fellowship  for  every  member  of 
that  race.  This  unbroken  associa- 
47 


The  Race  Memory. 

tion  of  man  with  the  world  about 
him  gives  unity  and  cumulative 
meaning  to  history,  and  unites  us  to 
the  earliest  times  and  the  primitive 
men.  We  carry  in  our  own  natures 
the  record  of  every  sort  of  contact 
with  Nature,  and  of  every  stage  of 
the  evolution  of  the  soul.  Nothing 
in  the  way  of  experience  is  wholly 
novel  to  us,  because  at  some  period 
in  our  race-life  we  shared  in  it ;  and  in 
the  depths  below  consciousness  there 
is  something  which  responds  to  the 
appeal  of  the  happening  which  is  new 
to  the  individual,  but  which  is  old 
to  the  race  because  it  is  part  of  that 
race  memory  to  which  all  men  have 
access. 

Born  in  cities  and  bred  amid  their 
stir  and  activity,  we  adapt  ourselves 
swiftly   to  the  habits   of  the   moun 
taineer,  of  the  traveller  in  the  desert, 
48 


The  Race  Memory. 

or  the  seafarer.  Nothing  is  really 
strange  to  us,  and  a  brief  period 
makes  us  at  home  in  all  conditions. 
Nothing  that  comes  to  a  man  is 
wholly  unexpected,  because  it  has 
already  happened  to  men  whose  blood 
is  in  his  veins ;  no  aspect  of  Nature 
is  entirely  unfamiliar,  because  at  some 
time,  in  the  history  of  some  ancestor, 
we  have  touched  Nature  at  every 
point  and  seen  every  phase  of  her 
manifold  life.  By  virtue  of  our  race 
relationship  we  have  all  been  dwellers 
in  huts ;  woodsmen  skilled  in  the 
secrets  of  wood-craft ;  we  have  lived 
in  virgin  forests ;  we  have  been  at 
home  in  tents  on  great  plains  or 
burning  deserts ;  we  have  been  sail 
ors,  explorers,  fighters,  colonizers. 
Nothing  comes  amiss  to  us,  but  every 
thing  awakens  some  response  in  us ; 
and  nothing  entirely  unfamiliar  hap- 
4  49 


The  Race  Memory. 

pens  because  everything  has  already 
happened.  The  American,  making 
his  first  voyage,  finds  himself  quickly 
adopting  the  habits,  the  mood,  the 
language  of  the  sea,  because,  centu 
ries  ago,  he  crossed  the  same  sea,  and 
in  still  earlier  centuries  his  sail  flitted 
by  many  a  coast  and  was  spread  on 
many  strange  waters.  In  England 
he  finds  himself  constantly  striving 
to  recall  the  vague  and  indistinct  but 
very  real  background  of  his  old-time 
life.  Holland,  Scandinavia,  and  Italy 
have  surprises  for  him  ;  but  the  things 
that  are  novel  seem  to  have  come 
about  since  his  last  visit  rather  than 
to  be  the  strange  manners  of  hitherto 
unknown  countries. 

Egypt,  Syria,  and  the  farthest  East 

make  him  realize  the  long  periods  of 

time    which    separate    him    from    his 

earlier  knowledge  of  them.     After  a 

5° 


The  Race  Memory. 

day  of  sight-seeing  and  a  night  of 
sleep,  nothing  is  really  strange ;  it  is  a 
fresh  reading  of  an  old  story.  Travel 
becomes,  therefore,  not  so  much  an 
exploration  as  a  revival  of  recollec 
tion  ;  a  stirring  of  the  memory. 

In  like  manner,  no  record  of  expe 
rience  appeals  to  us  in  vain ;  there  is 
always  something  in  common  between 
our  own  history  and  the  most  marvel 
lous  things  that  happen  to  other  men 
and  women.  Children  do  not  be 
come  accustomed  to  the  variations  of 
the  fairy  tale  more  readily  than  their 
elders  to  all  the  possible  vicissitudes 
of  life.  We  divine  the  deeper  mean 
ing  of  the  myth  because  we  once 
made  myths  ;  we  enter  into  the  rush 
and  unspent  vitality  of  the  national 
epic  because  our  lives  once  passed 
through  the  stage  which  produced 
the  epic  as  naturally  as  the  soil  pro- 
51 


The  Race  Memory. 

duces  the  plant  and  the  tree  ;  the 
lyric,  in  all  its  keys  and  tones,  sings 
to  us  as  if  it  were  but  the  vibration 
of  our  own  souls,  because  every  deep 
and  passionate  feeling  which  throbs 
in  its  soft  or  tumultuous  music  has  at 
some  time  stirred  within  us ;  the 
drama,  in  all  its  vast  range,  has  no 
tragedy  so  sombre,  no  fate  so  dark, 
no  incident  so  terrible,  that  in  some 
past  we  may  not  match  it  with  a  kin 
dred  experience ;  and  fiction,  search 
ing  so  far  and  so  patiently  for  the 
fresh  fact,  the  novel  condition,  the 
unreported  circumstance,  is  never  able 
to  surprise  us  beyond  the  passing 
moment.  We  have  lived  too  long, 
travelled  too  widely,  seen,  felt,  and 
done  too  much  to  be  really  taken 
unaware  by  any  contemporary  hap 
pening  or  invention.  The  race  has 
lived  through  all  experiences,  and  the 
52 


The  Race  Memory. 

life  of  the  race  is  in  the  very  fibre 
of  our  life  ;  it  is  part  of  our  sub 
stance  :  we  are,  in  large  measure, 
what  it  has  made  us.  Below  our  con 
scious  life  abides  the  life  of  the  race  ; 
and  our  natures,  in  their  hidden  re 
cesses,  reverberate  with  the  echoes  of 
the  entire  past. 

A  very  large  part  of  this  universal 
life  of  humanity  has  been  concerned 
with  Nature ;  and  a  very  great  part 
of  those  experiences  which  have  made 
humanity  what  it  is  have  come  to  men 
through  their  association  with  Nature. 
Whichever  way  we  turn,  therefore, 
when  we  attempt  to  retrace  the  steps 
by  which  we  have  come  to  our  pres 
ent  condition,  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  Nature;  and  there  dawns 
upon  us  slowly  something  approach 
ing  an  adequate  impression  of  what 
this  vague  and  indistinct  but  intensely 
53 


The  Race  Memory. 

real  and  overwhelmingly  influential 
intimacy  means,  and  how  much  is 
involved  in  it  that  is  of  the  highest  im 
portance  to  us.  When  we  look  back 
and  attempt  to  distinguish  and  enumer 
ate  the  rills  of  knowledge,  discipline, 
and  power  that  have  fed  us,  our  lives 
seem  like  endless  rivers,  rising  far  back 
in  the  uplands  of  myth  and  tradition, 
and  receiving,  as  they  flow  onward, 
tributaries  from  every  mountain 
spring  or  meadow  brook  no  less  than 
from  every  sky  that  has  stretched  over 
them  in  their  long  course.  There 
is  a  striking  passage  in  one  of  the 
purest  and  freshest  of  modern  love 
stories  —  Arthur  Hugh  dough's 
"Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich "  — 
which  brings  before  the  thought  the 
range  and  sweep  of  a  human  life  so 
far  as  its  sources  of  influence  and 
power  are  concerned :  — 
54 


The  Race  Memory. 

But  a  revulsion  wrought  in  the  brain  and  bosom 
of  Elspie ; 

And  the  passion  she  just  had  compared  to  the 
vehement  ocean, 

Urging  in  high  spring-tide  its  masterful  way 
through  the  mountains, 

Forcing  and  flooding  the  silvery  stream,  as  it 
runs  from  the  inland  ; 

That  great  power  withdrawn,  receding  here 
and  passive, 

Felt  she  in  myriad  springs,  her  sources  far  in 
the  mountains, 

Stirring,  collecting,  rising,  upheaving,  forth- 
out-flowing, 

Taking  and  joining,  right  welcome,  that  deli 
cate  rill  in  the  valley, 

Filling  it,  making  it  strong,  and  still  descend 
ing,  seeking, 

With  a  blind  forefeeling  descending  ever, 
and  seeking, 

With  a  delicious  forefeeling,  the  great  still 
sea  before  it  ; 

There  deep  into  it,  far,  to  carry,  and  lose 
in  its  bosom, 

Waters  that  still  form  their  sources  exhaust- 
less  are  fain  to  be  added.  " 


55 


Chapter  VI. 

The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

'  I  ^HE  education  imparted  by  con- 
tact  with  Nature  is  so  inclusive, 
so  deep,  and  so  vital  that  from  this 
point  of  view  Nature  seems  to  exist 
for  the  development  of  man.  It  is 
impossible  to  study  the  effect  of 
human  contact  with  the  material,  the 
forces,  or  the  aspects  of  the  world 
about  us  without  perceiving  the  most 
striking  results  of  every  such  contact 
on  the  minds,  the  hearts,  and  the 
souls.  The  old  fable  of  Antaeus  gets 
a  new  meaning  when  we  begin  to 
grasp  the  enormous  accession  of  in 
telligence,  power,  and  character  which 
56 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

has  come  to  humanity  as  a  result  of 
intercourse  with  Nature.  So  marvel 
lous  are  the  adaptations  of  our  sur 
roundings  to  our  educational  needs 
that  one  cannot  read  far  in  the  in 
tellectual  history  of  the  race  without 
recognizing  the  educational  signifi 
cance  of  life  and  the  marvellous  school 
in  which  that  training  is  imparted  to 
successive  generations  by  methods  of 
which  those  who  learn  are  for  the 
most  part  entirely  unco'nscious.  As 
a  "  middle  term  between  man  and 
God  "  Nature  seems  to  furnish  both 
the  material  and  the  methods  neces 
sary  to  the  unfolding  of  the  soul, 
and  silently  but  imperatively  to  open 
man's  life  to  the  creative  impulses 
and  influences. 

This     education,     collective     and 
cumulative    in    its    rich    results,    is, 
of  course,  individual  and  personal  in 
57 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

its  processes.  The  immense  deposit 
of  knowledge,  insight,  discipline,  and 
character  which  the  race  now  holds 
as  the  result  of  an  unbroken  contact 
with  Nature  kept  up  through  many 
centuries,  was  acquired  and  accumu 
lated  by  individual  experience  and 
training.  It  is  impossible,  even  in 
the  dawning  light  which  research  has 
thrown  upon  primitive  habits,  man 
ners,  and  ideas,  to  reconstruct  the 
primitive  educational  processes.  But 
in  this  field,  as  in  so  many  others, 
a  child  must  be  our  teacher;  and 
from  the  observation  of  the  children 
about  us  we  may  learn  many  things 
about  the  thoughts  and  ways  of  those 
earliest  men  and  women  who  were 
cast  upon  Nature  as  helpless  and  de 
pendent  as  the  child  on  its  mother's 
breast.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  manner  of  their  coming  to  the 
58 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

perfect  human  condition,  it  is  safe  to 
assume  that  their  unfolding  was  as 
gradual  as  that  of  children ;  that  it 
proceeded  by  slow  stages  from  the 
lower  to  the  higher,  and  was  a  matter 
of  growth  rather  than  a  matter  of 
acquirement.  If  it  be  true,  as  seems 
probable,  that  the  complete  man  rose 
out  of  Nature  by  a  long  process  of 
evolution  instead  of  being  created 

o 

above  her,  how  marvellously  close 
must  have  been  the  relationship  be 
tween  man  and  Nature  through 
countless  centuries  !  She  is  then  in 
very  truth,  as  the  poets  have  held, 
our  mother ;  and  all  our  desires  for 
her,  all  the  stirrings  of  the  imagina 
tion  when  we  hear  the  murmurs  of 
the  deep  woods  or  catch,  far  inland, 
the  compelling  tones  of  the  sea, 
gain  a  deeper  and  more  mysterious 
significance. 

59 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

But  whatever  the  story  of  those 
forgotten  centuries  may  be,  it  is  clear 
that  the  first  education  men  received 
from  Nature  was  that  which  came 
through  the  first  great  human  experi 
ence  ;  the  discovery  of  the  world  in 
its  relations,  human  need,  and  activity. 
The  first  men  must  have  learned  at 
the  beginning  that  some  actions  were 
safe  and  others  perilous ;  that  some 
things  were  good  for  food  and  others 
deadly  ;  that  there  were  times,  seasons, 
and  an  orderly  progression ;  that  the 
body  must  be  fed,  sheltered,  and 
clothed,  and  that  the  materials  of 
food,  clothing,  and  housing  existed 
on  every  side ;  that  fruits  were  for 
eating,  grass  for  cutting,  and  trees 
for  building.  The  biography  of  the 
physical  life  may  have  been  slowly  or 
rapidly  written,  but  it  must  have 
been  written  in  terms  of  observation. 
60 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

Nature  taught  men,  first  of  all,  to 
see  things,  and  then  to  make  use  of 
them.  In  this  great  school,  observa 
tion  must  have  been  the  first  lesson 
set  for  the  learning  of  the  earliest 
classes.  The  senses  must  have  been 
developed  and  trained  first ;  the  eye 
was  taught  to  see,  the  ear  to  hear, 
the  tongue  to  taste,  the  hands  to  feel, 
to  shape,  and  to  mould.  So  through 
a  slowly  broadened  intelligence,  which 
may  only  be  hinted  at  here,  men 
learned  to  see  what  was  about  them 
and  to  use  it  for  their  needs.  All 
educational  processes  are  in  a  sense 
contemporaneous,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  educate  the  eye  or  the  hand  with 
out  educating  the  mind  at  the  same 
time ;  but  in  the  earliest  training  the 
emphasis  must  have  been  upon  ob 
servation,  and  observation  served  as 
the  first  and  most  available  means  of 
61 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

awakening  the  sleeping,  or  develop 
ing  the  germinal  soul  of  man. 

The  discovery  of  the  world  to  the 
senses,  earliest  of  all  the  discoveries  of 
Nature  in  point  of  time,  is  still  in 
complete,  and  is  now  the  special 
function  of  science.  If  its  progress 
could  be  separated  from  the  general 
development  of  the  race  and  written 
in  a  separate  record,  it  would  reveal 
a  minute  and  unbroken  training  of 
all  the  senses  of  all  men  according  to 
their  ability  and  teachableness.  That 
training  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  indi 
vidual  education  of  to-day  as  in  the 
first  years  when  men  and  Nature 
came  in  contact ;  but  it  is  no  longer 
directed,  as  a  rule,  to  the  mere  pre 
servation  of  existence  ;  it  has  become 
a  higher  education  and  more  distinctly 
realized  resource.  Nature  is  still 
ceaselessly  observed  and  studied  for 
62 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

food,  shelter,  clothing,  and  material 
support ;  but  science  watches  and 
meditates  not  for  bread  and  raiment, 
but  for  some  new  phenomena  which 
may  disclose  the  existence  of  a  finer 
or  subtler  force,  or  hint  at  the  opera 
tion  of  an  unsuspected  law.  And  it 
is  an  impressive  evidence  of  the  edu 
cational  quality  inherent  in  Nature 
that  the  more  thoroughly  the  mind 
masters  the  facts  of  her  manifold  life 
by  appropriating  the  training  of  ob 
servation,  the  more  subtle  and  per 
vasive  become  her  forces  ;  so  subtle 
and  pervasive  that  they  seem  more 
akin  to  the  spiritual  than  to  the 
material.  As  men  advance  in  edu 
cational  development,  the  educational 
materials  and  methods  offered  by 
Nature  take  on  forms  in  harmony 
with  the  expanding  intelligence.  For 
Nature  grows  more  marvellous  as  man 

63 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

learns  more  about  her  life,  and  meets 
each  new  out-reaching  of  intelligence 
with  the  stimulus  and  inspiration  of 
new  vistas  and  outlooks. 

As  she  trained  the  earliest,  so  she 
trains  the  latest  man  who  is  willing 
to  become  a  student  in  this  great 
school.  About  every  man's  feet 
there  lies  this  wonderland  of  force, 
life,  law,  and  beauty  which  has  min 
istered  so  mysteriously  and  so  vitally 
to  the  unfolding  life  of  his  race ;  and 
that  wonderland  is  open  to  every  one 
who  is  willing  to  give  the  eye  and  the 
mind  the  training  of  observation.  In 
the  order  of  growth  it  is  written  that 
each  man  must  discover  the  world 
for  himself;  he  enters  into  the  'heri 
tage  of  knowledge  which  humanity 
has  slowly  and  painfully  accumulated  ; 
but  if  he  would  educate  himself,  he 
too  must  discover  with  his  own  eyes 
64 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

the  world  about  him.  To  the  be 
ginner,  as  to  the  man  whose  sight  has 
been  suddenly  restored,  the  world  con 
veys  a  great,  confused  mass  of  im 
pressions  ;  but  patient  and  persistent 
observation  resolves  this  mass  into  a 
wonderful  order,  steadily  widening, 
and  constantly  disclosing  a  richer 
and  more  inclusive  beauty.  The 
boy,  in  heedless  pursuit  of  his  sport, 
notices  the  existence  of  the  fern ; 
the  naturalist  knows  that  there  are 
hundreds  of  varieties  of  this  plant, 
and  they  differ  from  each  other,  for 
the  most  part,  only  in  a  fairy-like 
rivalry  of  delicacy  and  beauty.  To 
the  untrained  eye  and  ear  the  road 
side1  is  a  mass  of  tangled  shrubs;  to 
the  trained  eye  it  is  a  walk  in  that 
wild  garden  which  one  comes  to  love 
at  last  as  he  loves  no  bit  of  cultivated 
soil  however  ordered  and  kept.  To 
5  65 


The  Discovery  to  the  Senses. 

the  untrained  ear  the  forest  is  per 
vaded  by  a  confused  murmur ;  to  the 
trained  ear  that  murmur  becomes  a 
harmony  of  many  clearly  marked 
tones.  The  world  steadily  widens 
and  grows  in  wonder  and  mystery 
to  the  man  who  forms  the  habit  of 
observation ;  it  becomes  at  last  not 
only  an  intimate  friend,  but  a  con 
stant  source  of  surprise  and  delight, 
—  a  new  and  inexhaustible  resource. 
The  cockney  sees  nothing  in  Na 
ture  ;  Thoreau  saw  so  much  that  he 
had  no  time  for  anything  else. 


66 


Chapter  VII. 

The   Discovery  to  the   Imagination. 

ONE  of  the  most  striking  and 
oppressive  interpretations  of 
Nature  in  modern  literature  is  that 
to  which  Tourguenieff  has  given  the 
form  of  a  prose-poem.  The  great 
writer  imagines  himself  in  a  vast 
cavern,  which  is  filled  by  the  presence 
of  a  majestic  womanly  figure  sunk  in 
profound  thought. 

c<  I  soon  guessed  that  this  woman 
must  be  Nature  herself;  and  a  rev 
erential  fear,  like  a  sudden  shiver, 
penetrated  my  soul. 

cc  I  approached  her,  and  greeting 
her  respectfully,  I  cried  :  CO  Mother 
67 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

of  us  all!  on  what  are  you  meditat 
ing  ?  Are  you  perhaps  thinking  of 
the  future  fate  of  mankind,  or  of  the 
long  road  that  man  must  travel  in 
order  to  reach  the  greatest  possible 
perfection,  the  highest  happiness  ?  ' 

"The  woman  slowly  turned  her 
dark  terrible  eyes,  her  lips  moved, 
and  with  a  thundering  metallic  voice 
she  spoke  :  — 

"  c  I  am  considering  how  to  give 
greater  strength  to  the  muscles  in  a 
flea's  leg,  so  that  it  may  escape  more 
easily  from  its  enemies.  The  equi 
librium  between  attack  and  defence 
is  lost,  and  must  be  restored.' 

cccWhat?'  stammered  I.  c  Is  that 
what  you  are  thinking  about  ?  Are 
not  we  men  then  your  dearest,  favor 
ite  children  ?  ' 

"  The  woman  frowned  slightly,  and 
said  :     c  All  creatures    are    my   chil- 
68 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

dren  ;  I  care  equally  for  you  all, — and 
annihilate  all  without  distinction.' 

<c  c  But  virtue  —  reason  —  justice  ? ' 
I  stammered  again. 

"  ( Those  are  human  words/  re 
sounded  the  brazen  voice.  ( I  recog 
nize  no  good  or  bad ;  reason  is  no 
law  for  me  ;  and  what  is  justice  ?  I 
gave  you  life ;  I  take  it  from  you 
and  I  give  it  to  others,  —  worms  or 
men,  it  is  all  the  same  to  me  .... 
but  as  for  thee,  protect  thyself  for 
a  while,  and  leave  me  in  peace/ 

"  I  strove  to  answer,  but  the  earth 
groaned  and  trembled,  and  I  awoke."  1 

Studied  apart  from  the  educational 
progress  of  humanity,  Nature  may 
appear  impassive,  indifferent,  sub 
limely  inexorable;  but  studied  in 
connection  with  the  unfolding  of  the 

1  Poems  in  Prose  ;  Boston  :  Cupples,  Upham 
&  Co. 

69 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

soul  of  man,  she  appears  everywhere 
sternly  beneficent,  austerely  friendly  ; 
for  our  frienyfs  are  not  those  who 
flatter  and  rymper  us,  but  those  who, 
to  recall  Emerson's  phrase,  "  make 
us  do  what  we  can."  From  the  be 
ginning  Nature  has  held  men  steadily 
to  their  tasks  ;  has  compelled  them 
to  learn  or  to  suffer,  to  observe  or  to 
perish. 

Primitive  man  was  the  slave  of 
Nature  by  reason  of  his  ignorance. 
One  of  the  earliest  representations 
of  man  now  in  existence  portrays 
him  fleeing,  defenceless,  naked,  and 
panic  stricken,  from  a  great  serpent ; 
he  is  without  weapons,  refuge,  or  de 
vice.  He  is  at  the  mercy  of  the 
weather,  the  sun,  the  malarial  mist, 
the  frost,  the  wild  beast ;  he  has 
neither  house,  arrow,  plough,  vessel, 
nor  medicine.  But  he  has  the  capa- 
70 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

city  for  growth,  and  all  the  possibilities 
of  power  are  in  him.  He  observes, 
reflects,  reasons  ;  and  he  slowly  eman 
cipates  himself  from  his  slavery  to 
material  conditions.  He  begins  to 
see  that  his  taskmaster  is  his  teacher, 
and  that  his  hardships  and  tasks  are 
lessons  which  accomplish  his  libera 
tion.  He  shelters  himself  from  the 
weather  by  using  the  trees  whose 
shadows  once  terrified  him;  he  kin 
dles  on  his  rude  hearth  the  same  fire 
which  burns  in  the  relentless  sun  ; 
he  snatches  clothing  from  the  beasts 
which  threatened  him  ;  he  makes 
weapons  and  tools  ;  he  draws  about 
him  groups  of  animals  and  gives  them 
domestic  habits  and  tastes  ;  he  breaks 
the  sod  and  Nature  feeds  him  with 
grain ;  he  builds  ships  and  finds  the 
mysterious  and  awful  sea  easier  to 
traverse  than  the  land,  now  that  the 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

winds  have  become  his  aids  ;  he  mas 
ters  the  greater  forces,  and  they,  too, 
become  his  ministers:  so  that  his 
voice  travels  vast  distances,  his 
thought  flies  to  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
he  makes  the  whole  world  one  great 
community,  he  lays  upon  Nature 
the  tasks  which  once  crushed  him, 
and  he  becomes  a  man  in  soul  as 
well  as  in  body.  He  has  learned  his 
lesson,  and  emancipated  himself  from 
physical  servitude  by  obedience,  by 
observation,  and  by  patience,  skill, 
and  character. 

This  is  the  story  of  his  relations  to 
Nature  on  the  material  side  ;  and  all 
this  sublime  education  has  its  roots 
in  the  earliest  observation,  trained, 
broadened,  and  turned  into  thought. 
But  with  this  education  of  the  senses, 
resulting  in  the  mastery  of  physical 
forces,  there  has  gone  on  another  edu- 
72 


The   Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

cation,  bringing  men  into  spiritual 
relations  with  Nature  and  bearing  the 
fruit  of  a  ripening  and  unfolding  of 
the  soul.  This  deep  and  beautiful 
relationship  is  suggested  by  Aubrey 
de  Vere,  in  a  passage  of  memorable 
beauty.  Speaking  of  Wordsworth, 
he  says  :  cc  How  much  the  human 
mind  conferred  upon  Nature,  and 
how  much  Nature  conferred  upon 
the  human  mind,  he  did  not  affect  to 
determine  ;  but  to  each  its  function 
came  from  God,  and  life  below  was 
one  long  mystic  colloquy  between 
the  twin-born  forms,  whispering  to 
gether  of  immortality." 

The  observation  of  the  primitive 
man,  like  that  of  the  child  of  to-day, 
did  not  end  in  the  simple  act  of  see 
ing;  it  slowly  gathered  the  facts 
which  carried  with  them  the  infer 
ence  of  law ;  it  awoke  the  imagina- 
73 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

tion,  and  religion,  poetry,  and  art 
were  born.  It  was  impossible  to  see 
the  world  long  without  discerning 
order  and  sequence ;  day  followed 
night,  and  night,  in  turn,  was  suc 
ceeded  by  day  ;  one  season  gave  place 
to  another,  but  always  in  a  fixed 
order  ;  seed  time  carried  with  it  the 
certain  assurance  of  the  harvest  time ; 
a  mysterious  but  certain  regularity 
brought  the  stars  to  the  zenith,  the 
tides  to  the  beach,  the  leaves  to  the 
trees.  Slowly  the  great  idea  of  law 
took  shape,  and  the  chief  value  of  phe 
nomena  was  no  longer  found  in  them 
selves  but  in  their  illustration  of  the 
fixed  and  marvellous  order  of  which 
they  were  part.  Phenomena,  at  first 
so  novel  and  perplexing,  became  sig 
nificant  of  the  forces  behind  them, 
and  the  vast  material  framework  of 
the  universe  was  soon  to  be  the 
74 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

product  of  incalculable  forces,  which 
played  through  it,  and  vivified,  sus 
tained,  and  moved  it  on  its  mysteri 
ous  way. 

The  discovery  of  the  world  to  the 
senses  was  supplemented  by  the  dis 
covery  of  the  world  to  the  imagina 
tion,  and  the  education  of  men  at  the 
breast  of  Nature  passed  into  another 
stage  and  took  on  a  higher  aspect. 
For  the  imagination  is  the  faculty 
which  sees  behind  the  material  phe 
nomena  the  force  which  moves  it,  the 
law  which  governs  it,  and  the  spirit 
ual  fact  which  it  symbolizes.  When 
the  imagination  awoke,  men  began 
to  look  at  the  world  no  longer  as 
a  mass  of  detached  impressions,  a 
huge  agglomeration  of  matter :  they 
saw  it  as  a  whole  ;  they  discovered 
order  and  law  everywhere  control 
ling  it ;  they  discerned  the  tide  of 
75 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

vitality  which  mysteriously  ebbed  and 
flowed  through  it,  making  it  a  living 
organism  instead  of  a  ball  of  inert  mat 
ter  ;  the  great  idea  of  beauty  shone 
from  it ;  its  marvellous  correspon 
dence  with  their  own  lives  was  re 
vealed;  its  strange  analogy  with  their 
own  growth,  unfolding  an  inward 
experience,  was  disclosed.  If  the  vast 
process,  so  briefly  outlined,  is  real 
ized  with  any  degree  of  clearness,  its 
educational  significance  and  influence 
cannot  be  evaded.  *To  see  nat 
ural  phenomena  so  clearly  and  so 
steadily  as  to  discern  the  law  behind 
them  ;  to  study  them  so  intently  as 
to  penetrate  to  the  force  which  flows 
through  them ;  to  rise,  by  gradual 
generalizations  of  widening  order,  to 
the  sublime  and  fundamental  concep 
tion  of  ultimate  unity  ;  to  pass  be 
yond  this  to  the  secondary  and  spir- 
76 


The  Discovery  to  the  Imagination. 

itual  meaning  of  the  universe;  and  to 
perceive  how  perfectly  and  com 
pletely,  in  force,  phenomena,  law,  and 
beauty  it  reproduces  and  interprets 
the  life  of  man;  —  this  is  surely  the 
real  education  of  the  human  race,  and 
in  the  fulfilling  of  this  function  and 
the  working  out  of  this  relationship 
is  to  be  found  the  key  to  the  story 
of  man's  intercourse  with  Nature ; 
and  in  the  light  of  this  interpreta 
tion  is  to  be  discerned  also  the  true 
conception  of  Nature  herself. 


77 


Chapter  VIII. 

The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

'  I AHE  discovery  of  the  world  to 
the  imagination  marks  the 
beginning  of  poetry,  art,  and  relig 
ion  ;  for  the  immediate  fruit  of  that 
discovery  was  mythology,  and  in 
mythology  is  to  be  found  the  first 
attempt  of  men  to  pass  beyond 
observation  to  explanation,  and  to 
interpret  the  world  about  them 
in  terms  of  their  own  experience. 
It  was  cc  the  earliest  form  in  which 
the  mind  of  the  pagan  world  dis 
cerned  the  universe  and  things  di 
vine;  "  it  was  the  sublime  vision  of 
the  fundamental  meaning  of  material 
73 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

things  revealed  to  the  childhood  of 
the  race.  The  physical  order,  with 
its  variety  and  beauty,  sank  deep 
into  the  hearts  of  primitive  men,  and 
gradually  they  began  to  discern  the 
law  behind  the  phenomena  and  the 
truth  behind  the  fact,  and  to  repre 
sent  these  large  conceptions  in  con 
crete  form.  The  myth,  unlike  the 
legend  or  the  popular  story  told 
generation  after  generation  for  enter 
tainment,  represents  a  serious  effort 
of  the  mind  of  the  race,  and  was  the 
product  of  one  of  the  most  signifi 
cant  and  important  stages  of  its 
development.  For  it  marks  the 
second  and  spiritual  contact  of  men 
with  Nature ;  the  discernment,  on 
their  part,  that  the  great  order  about 
them  embodies  and  reveals  great 
truths  as  truly  as  it  discloses  incalcu 
lable  forces;  and  that,  in  very  deep 
79 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

and  wonderful  ways,  it  symbolizes 
and  illustrates  their  own  experience. 
The  myth,  unlike  the  legend,  is 
an  explanation  of  natural  processes 
and  phenomena,  or  a  dramatic  repre 
sentation  of  the  inward  or  outward 
experience  of  the  men  who  fashioned 
it.  The  first  discovery  of  Nature  was 
made  by  the  senses,  and  bore  its  fruit 
in  all  manner  of  physical  and  mate 
rial  adjustments  ;  the  second  discov 
ery  was  to  the  imagination,  and  bore 
its  fruit  in  general  interpretations, 
in  spiritual  conceptions,  and  in  po 
etic  stories.  Men  began  to  feel 
the  mysterious  fellowship  between 
Nature  and  themselves  ;  and  the 
education  effected  by  that  fellow 
ship  passed  into  its  secondary  stage. 
The  recurring  phenomena  of  day 
and  night  began  to  stir  the  imagina 
tion  and  to  suggest  marvellous  an- 
80 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

alogies  to  human  experience.  The 
miracle  of  the  dawn,  stealing  silently 
out  of  the  bosom  of  the  night ;  the 
splendor  of  noonday,  with  its  con 
tests  between  sun  and  cloud ;  the 
dip  of  the  sun  behind  the  western 
hills  ;  the  splendor  of  the  afterglow, 
slowly  fading  into  darkness  ;  — 
these  constant  phenomena  of  the 
world's  life  sank  deep  into  the  con 
sciousness  of  the  childhood  of  the 
race,  and  the  imagination  responded 
with  a  rich  growth  of  poetic  stories, 
in  which  these  phenomena  of  the 
visible  world  were  not  only  ex 
plained,  but  were  made  to  symbolize 
the  phenomena  of  the  inner  world 
of  man's  nature  and  life.  Like  the 
children  of  to-day,  whose  habits  of 
mind  they  largely  shared,  these 
children  of  long  ago  projected  them 
selves  into  the  world  about  them, 
6  81 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

imputing  personality  and  will  to 
inanimate  things,  and  peopling  the 
earth  and  the  sea  with  beings  some 
times  touched  with  divinity,  and 
sometimes  allied  to  the  brute  nature 
and  the  brute  forces.  When  they 
endeavored  to  explain  what  they  saw 
about  them,  instead  of  framing  a 
scientific  theory,  as  we  should  do, 
they  created  a  myth.  The  thunder 
storm,  which  to  us  suggests  certain 
electrical  and  atmospheric  condi 
tions,  brought  before  their  eyes  and 
minds  the  figure  of  a  dragon,  at 
which  the  heavenly  archer  was  direct 
ing  his  swift  and  flashing  arrows. 
Under  countless  names  and  disguises 
the  sun  wanders  over  the  earth,  per 
forming  great  labors,  undergoing 
terrible  fatigues,  facing  appalling 
perils,  overcoming  relentless  foes. 
Passed  through  the  imagination  of 
82 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

childhood,  "the  perennial  story  of 
the  world's  daily  life,"  to  use  Mr. 
Tylor's  phrase,  reappears  in  a  series 
of  stories  as  widespread  as  the  habi 
tations  of  man,  as  varied  as  his  fancy 
could  invent,  as  deep,  as  vital,  and  as 
true  as  his  thought  and  intelligence 
permitted. 

The  mythologies  of  the  Hindus, 
the  Greeks,  and  the  Norsemen  con 
tained  the  germinal  science,  poetry, 
and  religion  of  those  races  ;  they  ex 
plained  Nature;  and  they  represented 
human  life  as  felt  and  understood  by 
these  different  peoples.  The  Norse 
mythology  especially  is  a  fairly  com 
plete  dramatic  account  of  the  life  of 
Nature  and  of  the  gods  and  men 
involved  in  that  life  ;  and  it  is  also 
a  fairly  complete  representation  of 
human  experience  in  concrete  dra 
matic  form.  For  the  myth  is  some- 

33 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

thing  more  than  an  explanation  or 
representation  of  natural  phenomena  ; 
it  is  a  dramatic  statement  of  the 
experience  and  life  of  the  men  who 
fashioned  it. '  Once  aroused,  the 
imagination  did  not  rest  in  the  en 
deavor  to  interpret  the  external 
world ;  it  passed  on  into  the  region 
of  man's  inner  consciousness  and 
strove  to  picture  him  to  himself. 
The  heroes  who  perform  such  won 
derful  feats  are  not  only  masks  of 
the  sun ;  they  are  also  masks  of 
the  human  soul  in  the  vicissitudes 
and  struggles  of  its  life  ;  they  are 
the  sublime  or  beautiful  images  of 
himself  which  man  projected  into 
the  world  about  him.  For  myth 
ology  not  only  personifies  Nature  ; 
it  also  idealizes  man.  As  the  hero, 
constantly  facing  foes  and  overcom 
ing  them,  constantly  confronted  by 
84 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

obstacles  and  surmounting  them  ;  as 
the  wanderer,  seeking  everywhere 
for  some  person  or  thing  lost  or 
longed-for,  —  the  human  soul  finds 
its  dramatic  representation  in  a  thou 
sand  forms  and  its  fortunes  pictured 
in  a  thousand  adventures. 

For  the  function  of  the  imagina 
tion  is  twofold :  to  see  things  in 
their  essential  nature  and  their  uni 
versal  relations,  and  to  give  them 
concrete  form  ;  to  turn  these  abstract 
ideas  or  purely  material  forms  into 
beautiful  or  striking  images.  To  the 
senses,  by  observation  alone,  the 
world  might  have  seemed  a  great 
piece  of  mechanism  ;  to  the  imagina 
tion  it  was  a  great  living  organism, 
—  flooded  with  life,  charged  with 
energy,  fecund,  reproductive,  creat 
ive.  So  vital  was  it,  in  the  vision 
of  those  old-time  children,  that  every 
35 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

wood  and  stream  was  peopled  with 
beings  after  their  own  kind  ;  in  every 
sea  there  was  a  beautiful  race  akin  to 
the  wave,  the  storm,  and  the  light ; 
in  everv  forest  a  race  allied  to  the 
ancient  solitude,  the  sacred  silence, 
the  brooding  duskiness  and  mystery. 
Man  and  Nature  were  so  intimately 
related  that  it  was  no  forcing  of 
thought  or  speech  to  pass  from  one 
to  the  other;  to  impute  to  Nature 
the  thought  and  will  of  man,  or  to 
discover  in  the  aspects  and  move 
ments  of  Nature  the  counterparts  of 
the  aspects  and  movements  of  the 
life  of  man  in  the  midst  of  Nature. 
In  this  poetic  epoch,  when  the  imag 
ination  was  playing  freely  with  the 
material  which  observation  had  accu 
mulated,  men  looked  upon  Nature 
and  saw  everywhere  the  same  play  of 
forces  which  they  felt  in  themselves ; 
86 


The  Poetic  Interpretation. 

more  than  this,  they  saw  themselves 
projected  in  sublime  figures  and  par 
ticipating  in  a  world-struggle,  sym 
bolized  day  by  day  in  the  heavens, 
and  shared  alike  by  Nature  and  her 
human  children.  For  Nature,  in  the 
prophetic  vision  of  childhood,  was  as 
she  will  some  day  become  in  the 
vision  of  science, — a  sublime  anal 
ogy  of  the  growth  of  man. 


Chapter   IX. 

The  Moral  Impress. 


education  which  has  been 
described  did  not  stop  with  the 
training  of  the  senses  and  the  awaken 
ing  of  the  imagination  ;  it  penetrated 
the  moral  nature  and  bore  the  fruit 
of  character.  For  men  are  organic 
units,  not  bundles  of  faculties,  and  it 
is  impossible  to  train  any  faculty  with 
out  influencing  and  affecting  the  man 
in  every  part  of  his  nature.  The 
character  formed  may  not  conform 
to  the  type  which  seems  to  us  sound 
est  and  highest,  but  it  is  very  certain 
that  every  serious  contact  with  Nature 
leaves  its  impress  in  character,  and 
88 


The  Moral  Impress. 

that  the  moral  nature  preserves  the 
record  of  the  long  educational  process. 
Men  are  to-day,  in  character  no  less 
than  in  faculty,  very  largely  what 
Nature  has  made  them,  and  there  is 
truth  in  Walter  Savage  Landor's  fine 
lines :  — 

"  We  are  what  suns  and  winds  and  waters  make  us; 
The  mountains  are  our  sponsors,  and  the  rills 
Fashion  and  win  their  nursling  with  their  smiles. " 

There  is  truth  in  these  lines,  not 
only  because  of  the  inevitable  influ 
ence  upon  us  of  surroundings  which 
are  constantly  present  in  our  senses 
and  thought,  but  because  of  our 
active  and  positive  relations  with 
these  surroundings.  Our  dealings 
with  Nature  are  passive  only  so  long 
as  her  varied  life  presents  itself  to  us 
as  a  spectacle ;  and  even  in  this  neu 
tral  relationship  there  is  a  certain  in 
evitable  education.  Mountains,  seas, 


The  Moral  Impress. 

and  sky  do  not  leave  the  dullest  man 
entirely  untouched  by  their  influences. 
The  moment  we  begin  to  deal  with 
Nature  actively  or  directly  our  rela 
tions  become  positive,  and  a  powerful 
influence  begins  to  play  upon  us. 
Primitive  men  did  not  discover  that 
shelter  was  necessary  to  protect  them 
from  storms  ;  that  clothing  was  needed 
to  preserve  them  from  cold,  food  from 
starvation ;  that  fire  made  the  making 
of  tools  and  implements  possible ; 
that  some  fruits  were  good  for  food 
and  some  were  poisonous,  without 
receiving  a  moral  training  evidenced 
by  character.  For  men  cannot  grow 
in  knowledge,  and  cannot  utilize 
knowledge  when  they  have  acquired 
it,  without  developing  certain  qualities 
which  are  the  moral  deposit  of  the 
serious  use  and  direction  of  their 
faculties.  Patience,  persistence,  self- 
go 


The  Moral  Impress. 

denial,  self-restraint,  endurance,  and 
the  will  to  work  lie  at  the  foundation 
of  all  human  development,  and  were 
the  direct  results  of  the  earliest 
contacts  with  Nature.  The  moral 
quality  is  universal  in  spite  of  our 
scepticism,  and  men  cannot  stand  in 
direct  relations  with  the  world  at 
any  point  without  receiving  moral 
influence  and  training.  The  moral 
quality  is  in  the  soil  under  our  feet ; 
and  a  man  cannot  seriously  care  for 
fifty  acres  of  land  without  insensibly 
forming  a  character.  He  will  learn 
to  watch  the  seasons  and  to  make 
the  most  of  them ;  he  will  slowly 
master  the  secrets  of  farming;  but 
he  will  also  become  steadfast,  endur 
ing,  vigilant,  master  of  his  moods, 
his  inclinations,  and  his  disposition. 
He  will  learn  that  great  lesson  of 
subordination  to  the  conditions  of 
91 


The  Moral  Impress. 

success  which  is  the  inevitable  moral 
product  of  serious  application  to  a 
task.  In  the  end  he  will  get  a  greater 
moral  than  material  return  from  his 
stubborn  acres ;  and,  if  he  is  wise, 
he  will  discover  that  Nature  returns 
something  better  than  fruits  and  grains 
for  the  work  of  man,  and  that  every 
hour  of  real  toil  leaves  its  impress 
on  the  soul  of  the  toiler. 

No  more  heroic  toil  has  been 
borne  by  man  than  that  which  has 
been  involved  in  the  long  process  inac 
curately  described  as,  "  subduing  Na 
ture  ;  "  for  Nature  is  never  subdued  ; 
it  is  man  who  is  subdued  by  subordi 
nating  himself  to  the  conditions  which 
protect  the  discovery  of  every  natural 
law,  the  use  of  every  natural  force, 
and  the  possession  of  every  natural 
product.  Nature  gives  nothing  to 
man  but  beauty,  and  beauty  is  really 
92 


The  Moral  Impress. 

given  only  to  those  who  open  their 
minds  and  hearts  by  education  to  per 
ceive  and  receive  it.  Nature  treats 
man  from  the  beginning  as  a  moral 
being ;  she  respects  his  independence 
and  recognizes  his  equality  with  her 
self.  She  refuses  to  pauperize  him  by 
easy  prodigality,  to  weaken  him  by 
putting  into  his  hands  forces  and 
treasures  the  uses  of  which  he  has  not 
been  trained  to  understand.  On  the 
contrary,  she  insists  upon  the  plant 
ing  of  the  seed  before  bestowing  the 
harvest;  on  the  cutting  of  the  tree 
before  the  building  of  the  house ;  on 
the  tunnelling  or  blasting  before  the 
discovery  of  the  metals  ;  on  long  and 
patient  experimentation  before  the 
using  of  steam  or  electricity ;  on 
patient  and  exact  observation  before 
the  discernment  of  the  law.  In  every 
relation,  at  every  point,  character  is  the 
93 


The  Moral  Impress. 

inevitable  result  of  any  serious  con 
tact  between  men  and  Nature ;  and 
the  establishment  of  every  such  rela 
tionship  is  so  hedged  about  with  moral 
requirements  that  it  seems  at  times 
as  if  the  moral  result  were  the  real 
end  to  which  all  intercourse  between 
men  and  Nature  tends,  and  as  if  all 
material  products  and  results  were 
only  tokens  and  measures  of  moral 
value.  It  is  impossible  to  study  this 
aspect  of  man's  relations  with  Nature 
without  a  deepening  conviction  of  the 
presence  of  a  vital  and  universal  edu 
cational  quality  and  purpose  in  that 
relation  ;  a  quality  and  purpose  which 
go  far  to  show  what  Nature  really  is. 
The  slowly  and  painfully  acquired 
patience,  endurance,  self-denial,  and 
self-surrender  which  have  accompa 
nied  the  gradual  but  cumulative 
mastery  of  natural  phenomena,  fact, 
94 


The  Moral  Impress. 

law,  and  force  by  men  forms  the 
moral  foundation  upon  which  society 
ultimately  rests ;  it  is  not  a  complete 
moral  education,  but  it  has  made 
such  an  education  possible ;  and  it 
has  become  so  much  a  part  of  the 
very  texture  of  man's  soul  and  life 
that  it  binds  him  to  Nature  not 
through  his  senses  only,  or  through 
his  imagination  alone,  but  by  means 
of  that  which  is  deepest  and  most 
enduring  in  himself.  The  fellowship 
of  the  race  with  Nature  is  not  only 
witnessed  in  the  self-restraint  and 
self-denial  by  the  exercise  of  which 
society  exists  to-day,  but  it  survives 
in  each  individual  in  that  moral  in 
heritance  which  is  the  most  precious 
bequest  which  we  have  received  from 
the  toiling,  suffering,  enduring  past. 


95 


Chapter  X. 

The  Record  in  Language. 

/"T"SHE  impress  of  Nature  upon 
man  is  not  only  discoverable 
in  the  deeps  of  consciousness  and  in 
the  bases  of  character ;  it  shines  also 
on  the  very  surface  of  all  human 
speech.  Men  could  not,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  absorb  through  their  senses 
and  imagination  the  beauty  and  sig 
nificance  of  the  world  about  them 
without  reproducing  this  pervasive 
influence  in  every  form  of  speech. 
The  ages  in  which  they  were  making 
discovery  of  Nature  were  the  ages  in 
which  they  were  also  creating  lan 
guage, —  that  most  marvellous  of  all 
96 


The   Record  in  Language. 

the  things  they  have  made.  Words 
are  so  familiar  that  we  have  largely 
lost  their  first  associations,  their  pri 
mary  meanings  ;  but  when  we  re 
cover  these  for  a  moment,  the  cc  faded 
metaphor"  glows  again  with  the 
light  of  its  earliest  poetic  substance. 
Indeed,  it  is  only  when  we  rescue  lan 
guage  from  the  insensibility  to  its  far- 
reaching  relationships  brought  about 
by  constant  use  that  we  realize  how 
poetic  the  language-makers  were,  and 
how  great  a  part  the  imagination 
played  in  the  making  of  language. 
For  language  is  not  only  largely 
faded  metaphor,  but  it  is  largely 
a  product  of  man's  thought  about 
Nature.  The  more  closely  it  is  stud 
ied  the  more  intimate  the  intercourse 
between  men  and  Nature  is  seen  to 
have  been,  and  the  more  distinct 
becomes  the  fact  that  Nature  not 
7  97 


The   Record  in  Language. 

only  educated  men  in  all  manner  of 
skills  and  arts,  but  that  she  furnished 
them  with  complete  illustration  of 
their  inward  life  by  analogy,  symbol, 
and  vital  processes  of  every  kind. 

So  closely  do  we  stand  to  the 
material  order  about  us,  and  so  fun 
damental  is  the  correspondence  be 
tween  that  order  and  the  facts  and 
processes  of  our  lives,  that  prime 
val  men  did  not  separate  them  in 
thought.  Nature  was  divine  to  them, 
as  she  will  become  again  to  their 
later  descendants,  because  she  was 
part  of  themselves  ;  without  her  they 
could  not  have  understood  what  was 
going  on  within  their  own  souls  ; 
without  the  aid  she  offered  them  they 
would  have  been  powerless  to  ex 
press  themselves.  They  had  not 
made  that  distinction  between  matter 
and  spirit,  which,  as  commonly  un- 

9s 


The  Record  in  Language. 

derstood,  has  brought  so  much  con 
fusion  into  thought  by  making  spirit 
vague  and  unreal,  and  matter  dead 
and  sensual. 

Science  has  been  radically  chang 
ing  this  conception  of  matter  of  late 
years,  until  the  materialistic  idea  of 
the  world  is  swiftly  fading  in  the 
presence  of  a  conception  which  has 
not  only  spiritualized  matter,  but  is 
fast  bringing  back  the  world  to  the 
place  given  it  by  the  earliest  men. 
They  .rested  unconsciously  in  that 
unity  to  which  we  are  slowly  working 
our  way  back  through  more  intimate 
and  exact  knowledge.  In  the  child 
hood  of  the  race,  when  all  things  were 
explained  by  the  imagination,  and  men 
projected  themselves  into  Nature 
as  freely  and  as  unconsciously  as  they 
looked  at  the  stars  or  listened  to  the 
sea,  the  outward  material  fact  seemed 
99 


The  Record  in  Language. 

the  necessary  picture  or  symbol  of  the 
inward  spiritual  process,  and  Nature 
was  the  great  parable  by  which  man 
explained  himself  and  fashioned  an 
adequate  instrument  of  expression  of 
himself. 

In  Nature  he  found  the  constant 
illustration  of  his  intellectual,  moral, 
and  emotional  life.  His  language 
was,  therefore,  a  series  of  metaphors 
suggested  by  natural  facts  or  by  his 
relations  to  them.  To  do  right  was 
not,  in  his  thought,  an  abstract 
thing;  it  was  going  in  a  straight 
line:  and  to  do  wrong  was  similarly 
concrete,  for  it  was  to  take  a  crooked 
course.  Spirit,  so  often  elusive  and 
intangible  to  modern  men,  was  the 
wind  to  him  ;  something  unseen,  but 
unmistakably  real ;  invisible,  but  of 
vast  range  of  power  ;  intangible,  but 
all-pervasive. 

IOO 


The  Record  in  "Language'. 

The  words  which  are  borrowed 
from  natural  phenomena  or  processes, 
to  express  spiritual  phenomena  or 
processes,  are  numberless  ;  they  form 
the  base  of  every  language.  But  the 
intimacy  of  men  with  Nature  is  evi 
denced  not  less  impressively  by  the 
great  series  of  metaphors  which  bring 
before  the  mind  the  spirit  or  char 
acter  of  a  man,  a  thought,  a  feel 
ing,  or  an  action,  by  reference  to  some 
appearance  or  fact  of  Nature.  The 
world  over,  in  figure,  fable,  and  para 
ble,  Nature  is  drawn  upon  to  set  in 
clear,  strong  light  human  character 
and  action.  The  wolf  is  everywhere 
the  synonyme  for  hunger  and  want, 
the  fox  for  cunning,  the  ox  for 
patience,  the  eagle  for  audacity,  the. 
lion  for  strength,  the  serpent  for 
malice.  In  like  manner,  the  higher 
and  subtler  ideas  find  their  most  strik- 
101 


The  Record  in  Language. 

ing  and  effective  illustrations  in  nat 
ural  phenomena.  In  all  languages 
the  sky  is  the  symbol  of  purity,  vast- 
ness,  inclusiveness  ;  the  sea,  of  rest 
lessness  ;  the  mountain,  of  solidity 
and  majesty;  the  stars,  of  clearness 
and  fixity  ;  light  and  darkness,  of  good 
and  evil,  of  ignorance  and  knowledge. 
So  general  and  so  constant  is  the 
use  of  these  figures  that  they  form 
a  kind  of  universal  element  in  all 
languages  ;  and  the  more  we  study 
them,  the  more  clearly  do  we  per 
ceive  that  Nature  has  furnished  man 
with  a  complete  commentary  on  him 
self,  and  that  language  is  a  sublime 
registry  of  an  intimacy  once  so  close 
and  so  long  continued  as  to  consti 
tute  a  substantial  unity  between  those 
who  shared  it. 

As    thought    clarifies,    and    deals 
more  and    more  definitely  with   the 


1 02 


The  Record  in  Language. 

spiritual  aspects  of  man's  life,  Nature 
does  not  recede,  but  advances  with 
still  deeper  and  more  wonderful  illus 
tration  of  these  higher  phases  of  the 
life  of  her  children.  Homer  had  a 
notable  gift  for  vivid  illustration 

o 

from  Nature,  and  the  "  Iliad  "  espe 
cially  is  lighted  from  beginning  to 
end  with  bold  or  beautiful  meta 
phors.  But  it  is  in  the  Bibles  of 
the  race,  in  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  Vedic  Hymns,  that  Nature 
matches  the  loftiest  thought  of  man. 
In  these  great  revelations  of  the 
human  spirit  the  obvious  illustra 
tions,  which  children  still  discover 
in  their  games,  give  place  to  the  per 
ception  of  that  profounder  meaning  in 
phenomena  and  process  which  makes 
Nature  one  great  and  luminous  sym 
bol  of  the  life  of  man.  When  the 
mind  has  passed  through  the  earlier 
103 


The  Record  in  Language. 

stages  of  observation  by  the  senses 
and  discovery  through  the  imagina 
tion,  there  dawns  on  man  a  vaster  and 
deeper  conception  of  the  world  about 
him  and  of  his  relation  to  it.  The 
order,  the  force,  the  beauty,  the  sub 
limity  of  that  world  become  the  gar 
ment  of  God  to  him  ;  and  in  this 
unspeakable  splendor  which  enfolds 
him  he  sees  the  sublime  pageant  of 
a  life  not  less  divine  than  his  own, 
and  flooding  him  on  every  side  with 
light  on  his  own  nature  and  destiny. 
In  this  stage  of  his  growth  Nature 
enters  his  speech  in  a  thousand  forms, 
to  help  him  express  the  highest 
thought  that  is  in  him.  Stars, 
mountains,  seas,  the  infinite  heavens, 
become  then  the  obvious  symbols 
of  the  life  of  the  spirit.  In  the 
book  of  Job  the  universe  moves  be 
fore  the  imagination  as  with  the 
104 


The  Record  in  Language. 

breath  of  God  ;  and  in  the  New  Tes 
tament,  when  Paul  —  that  great  poet 
struggling  with  the  prose  of  a  dia 
lectic  period  —  would  picture  man  in 
the  mysterious  and  awful  transfor 
mation  from  the  earthly  to  the 
heavenly,  he  invokes  the  aid  of 
Nature,  and  carries  conviction  in  the 
familiar  image  of  one  of  the  most 
familiar  natural  processes,  —  <c  it  is 
sown  a  natural  body ;  it  is  raised  a 
spiritual  body.'' 


'05 


Chapter  XL 

The  Individual  Approach. 

/"TpyHE  educational  quality  involved 
-*•  in  human  intercourse  with  Na 
ture,  and  the  resultant  intelligence, 
training,  discipline,  character,  and 
development,  have  been  very  inade 
quately  suggested  in  the  preceding 
chapters.  The  attempt  has  been 
made  to  bring  into  view  the  natural 
background  of  the  human  spirit,  and 
to  hint  at  some  of  the  methods  by 
which  Nature,  in  phenomena,  force, 
law,  and  symbol,  has  sunk  deep 
into  human  consciousness,  and  has 
been  reflected  in  human  skills,  arts, 
sciences,  and  religions.  To  de- 
106 


The  Individual  Approach. 

scribe  with  any  degree  of  fulness 
what  men  have  learned  from  Nature 
would  involve  telling  the  story  of  the 
unfolding  of  the  human  spirit ;  to 
describe  it  accurately  would  involve 
a  recapitulation  of  the  sciences.  It 
has  been  suggested  in  large  outline 
and  as  it  takes  account  of  the  race, 
for  the  purpose  of  bringing  into 
clearer  light  the  ways  by  which  the 
individual  man  may  bring  himself 
into  fruitful  educational  relations  with 
Nature. 

For  it  is  profoundly  true,  as  Froe- 
bel  has  said,  that  the  history  of  the 
race  is  the  true  educational  material 
for  the  unfolding  of  the  individual  life ; 
because  the  race  has  passed  through 
every  phase  of  growth  and  experience 
which  the  individual  passes  through. 
It  has  had  its  period  of  infancy,  with 
all  the  limitations  of  ignorance  and 
107 


The  Individual  Approach. 

weakness  which  make  the  horizon  of 
infancy  so  narrow  and  its  perils  so 
great ;  it  has  had  to  learn  by  painful 
and  slow  observation  and  experience 
what  Nature  is  and  what  Nature  can 
do  for  man.  It  has  had  its  period 
of  youth,  with  the  tidal  wave  of  life 
and  passion  steadily  mounting,  and 
the  imagination  playing  like  a  kin 
dling  and  spreading  flame  over  the 
entire  surface  of  its  knowledge  and 
activity ;  and  in  the  moment  of 
discovery  to  the  imagination  it  has 
dreamed  the  beautiful  and  prophetic 
dreams  of  mythology.  It  has  had 
its  period  of  maturity,  with  the  trained 
eye  and  hand,  the  clear  intelligence, 
the  disciplined  will ;  and  its  more  ex 
act  and  arduous  studies  have  created 
that  ordered  and  tested  knowledge 
which  we  call  science.  In  the  un 
folding  of  each  individual  life  these 
1 08 


The  Individual  Approach. 

periods  succeed  each  other  in  the 
order  which  they  followed  in  the 
development  of  the  race ;  so  that 
every  phase  of  the  universal  life  has 
a  deep  and  vital  meaning  for  the 
particular  life,  and  a  man  is  really 
educated  in  the  degree  in  which  he 
comprehends  and  shares  the  life  of 
the  race.  Training  makes  for  skill, 
discipline  for  character,  and  the  ac 
quirement  of  knowledge  for  intelli 
gence;  but  these  processes  never  bear 
their  ripest  fruit  until  they  pass  on 
into  culture,  and  become,  through 
vital  assimilation,  part  of  the  man 
himself.  To  enter  into  the  life  of 
the  race  through  its  history,  its  arts, 
its  science,  and  its  religion  is  to  come 
into  such  vital  relations  with  it  that 
its  experience  becomes  ours  as  truly 
as  if  we  had  passed  through  it.  In 
this  way  Shakspeare  possessed  him- 
109 


The  Individual  Approach. 

self  of  the  experience  of  the  Greek, 
the  Roman,  the  Egyptian,  the  Italian, 
and  the  Englishman  of  an  earlier  age  ; 
in  this  way  Dante  mastered  the  secret 
of  medievalism ;  in  this  way  Haw 
thorne  discerned  the  spirit  of  Puri 
tanism  in  its  personal  struggle  with 
temptation  and  sin. 

The  experience  of  the  race  in  its 
intercourse  with  Nature  is  preserved, 
as  has  been  said,  in  the  elementary 
training  of  its  instincts,  and  in  the 
deepening  and  widening  of  its  intelli 
gence  recorded  in  [its  sciences,  arts, 
skills,  and  religions/;  this  great  history 
is  open  to  the  incjlvidual  student,  and 
he  will  learn  to/ read  it  with  intelli 
gence  in  the  degree  in  which  he 
comes  into  personal  relations  with 
Nature;  for /while  the  general  ex 
perience  broadens  and  deepens  the 
particular  /experience,  the  particular 
no 


The  Individual  Approach. 

experience  must  precede  or  accom 
pany  the  endeavor  to  master  the 
general  experience  by  acting  as  its 
interpreter.  When  a  man  gains  per 
sonal  knowledge  of  Nature  he  begins 
to  see  what  Nature  has  done  for  all 
men.  To  establish  these  personal 
relations,  to  come  into  direct  contact 
with  Nature,  is,  therefore,  one  of  the 
chief  ways  of  mastering  the  secret 
and  mystery  of  the  development  of 
man  in  this  world.  It  is,  however, 
much  more  than  this ;  for  it  is  one 
great  method  of  so  broadening,  en 
riching-,  and  nourishing  the  individual 

o7  o 

that  he  becomes  a  master  of  life  and 
its  forces.  The  knowledge  which  a 
man  may  gain,  directly  and  indi 
rectly,  by  observation,  imagination, 
absorption,  and  self-surrender  from 
Nature,  makes  him  an  artist  in  the 
use  and  treatment  of  his  life  by  put- 
in 


The  Individual  Approach. 

ting  him  in  possession  of  the  richest 
material,  by  placing  him  in  the  best 
conditions,  and  by  developing  and 
directing  the  activity  of  his  whole 
nature. 

There  are  some  men  to  whom  inti 
macy  with  Nature  in  her  obvious  as 
pects  and  forms  appears  to  be  an 
inheritance  ;  they  are  born  into  it,  and 
are  never  conscious  of  the  hour  from 
which  it  dates.  Their  eyes  see  the 
world  about  them  with  a  clearness 
and  accuracy  of  observation  which 
turns  their  hours  of  play  into  uncon 
scious  study  of  science.  Flowers, 
trees,  shrubs,  birds,  and  animals  seem 
akin  to  them,  and  are  recognized  at 
first  sight,  and  put  in  their  proper 
place  and  order.  Other  men,  failing 
of  this  birth-gift  and  missing  the  train 
ing  of  the  senses  in  childhood,  must 
slowly  and  of  set  purpose  piece  out  a 

112 


The  Individual  Approach. 

defective  power  of  observation  by 
habits  formed  in  maturity.  This  in 
troductory  relationship  with  Nature  is 
a  resource  of  inexhaustible  delight  and 
enrichment ;  to  establish  it  ought  to 
be  as  much  a  part  of  every  education 
as  the  teaching  of  the  rudiments  of 
formal  knowledge ;  and  it  ought  to 
be  as  great  a  reproach  to  a  man  not 
to  be  able  to  read  the  open  pages  of 
the  world  about  him  as  not  to  be 
able  to  read  the  open  page  of  the 
book  before  him.  It  is  a  matter  of 
instinct  with  a  few;  it  may  be  a 
matter  of  education  with  all.  Even 
those  who  are  born  with  the  eyes 
and  ears  of  naturalists  must  reinforce 
their  native  aptitude  by  training. 

After  a  time  the  habit  of  exact 
observation  is  formed,  and  the  con 
scious  observation  becomes  uncon 
scious.  "The  ear  can  be  taught  to 


The  Individual  Approach. 

discriminate  among  sounds/'  says 
Mr.  Burroughs,  "just  as  the  sense 
of  touch  gives  us  varied  impressions 
through  our  finger-tips.  I  think  I 
do  this  discriminating  unconsciously. 
If  I  hear  a  sound,  it  requires  no  effort 
to  decide  what  it  is,  —  whether  a  bird- 
cry,  song,  or  call,  or  the  drone  of  some 
insect.  Every  sound  has  a  meaning. 
Tou  must  be  able  to  take  a  hint ;  that 
is  the  great  secret  of  observing  Nature. 
You  must  see  what  is  going  on,  and 
draw  conclusions.  I  visited,  some 
months  ago,  the  grave  of  Phillips 
Brooks  at  Mount  Auburn  Cemetery, 
and  while  I  was  there  I  found  a 
bird's  nest  at  the  foot  of  his  grave. 
The  way  I  found  it  was  this :  I  heard 
the  cry  of  a  bird  in  distress,  and  when 
I  looked  about  I  saw  a  little  chicka 
dee  with  food  in  its  beak.  That  was 
hint  enough."  Mr.  Burroughs  has  a 
114 


The  Individual  Approach. 

genius  for  observation ;  but  while  the 
great  mass  of  men  can  never  gain 
his  acuteness  and  felicity  of  vision, 
education  in  observation  will  unfold 
the  world  to  every  one  who  is  willing 
to  submit  to  a  training  which  brings 
its  constant  reward  with  it.  Without 
this  training  no  one  can  really  see 
Nature  in  her  varied  aspects  and  her 
familiar  and  obvious  life ;  and  it  is 
the  good  fortune  of  modern  men  that 
a  growing  literature  of  natural  obser 
vation  furnishes  stimulus  and  end 
less  suggestion  for  such  an  education. 
Such  writers  as  Gilbert  White,  Tho- 
reau,  Burroughs,  and  JerTeries  —  to 
make  no  mention  of  manuals  and  text 
books  prepared  for  this  specific  pur 
pose,  —  open  the  natural  world  to  one 
who  has  remained  ignorant  of  it,  and 
suggest  the  methods  by  which  one 
may  repeat  in  his  own  experience  the 
"5 


The  Individual  Approach. 

first  steps  in  observation  which  the 
race  took  so  long  ago,  and  upon 
which  so  large  a  part  of  its  knowl 
edge,  character,  and  achievements 
ultimately  rest. 


116 


Chapter  XII. 

Personal  Intimacy. 

'T^HE  delight  which  comes  to  the 
•*•  naturalist  in  his  growing  ac 
quaintance  with  tree,  flower,  beast, 
and  bird  ;  the  sense  of  exhilaration 
which  the  scientist  feels  as  he  passes 
from  the  lesser  to  the  greater  law 
and  discerns  an  ever  widening  order  ; 
the  thrill  which  stirs  the  imagination 
of  the  artist  as  he  discovers  a  deep 
ening  beauty  in  the  world  about 
him  ;  —  these  are  great  and  real 
resources,  but  they  are,  in  a  sense, 
the  resources  of  a  limited  number  of 
men  and  women.  The  technical 
117 


Personal  Intimacy. 

training  essential  to  the  naturalist, 
the  scientist,  and  the  artist  is  beyond 
the  reach  of  a  multitude  to  whom 
Nature  is  accessible,  but  the  weight 
of  whose  work  must  be  put  else 
where.  One  may  have  something  of 
each  of  these  great  knowledges,  and 
add  to  it  year  by  year  until  it  be 
comes  measurably  adequate ;  but  one 
can  never  master  any  one  of  them 
unless  he  gives  his  life  to  it. 

There  is  another  kind  of  know 
ledge  of  Nature,  however,  which  is 
not  only  possible  to  most  men  and 
women,  but  which  is,  in  its  rela 
tion  to  the  complete  unfolding  of 
the  man  by  means  of  culture,  more 
vital  and  important  than  any  of  these 
special  knowledges.  For  the  nat 
uralist,  the  scientist,  and  the  technical 
artist  are  men  befpre  they  gain  or 
use  powerfully  any  kind  of  skill ; 
118 


Personal  Intimacy. 

and  the  enrichment  and  development 
of  the  personality  is  the  matter  of 
supreme  moment  with  each  individ 
ual.  Every  kind  of  knowledge  feeds 
the  mind,  and  the  rivulets  which 
contribute  to  the  volume  of  the 
stream  have  their  great  and  positive 
value;  but  the  source  of  the  stream 
is  the  spring  that  rises  among  the 
hills,  out  of  the  very  heart  of  Nature. 
There  is  a  fundamental  personal  re 
lation  between  men  and  Nature  which 
is  a  thing  apart  from  special  and 
technical  relations  ;  and  it  is  through 
this  relation  that  man  appropriates 
the  material  and  the  impulse  which 
Nature  offers  for  his  culture.  Art 
in  all  its  forms  is  powerless  to  give 
this  peculiar  knowledge  and  inspira 
tion,  and  it  is  not  to  be  had  from 
men  ;  it  is  the  special  and  distinctive 
contribution  of  Nature  to  individual 
119 


Personal  Intimacy. 

culture.  No  knowledge  of  phe 
nomena,  force,  law,  or  beauty  —  the 
various  aspects  through  which  Na 
ture  reveals  herself —  comes  amiss  ; 
but  there  is  a  knowledge  which  is 
apart  from  these,  and  which  a  man 
may  acquire  who  is  neither  naturalist, 
scientist,  nor  artist ;  a  knowledge  at 
once  more  intangible  and  elusive,  and 
at  the  same  time  more  vital,  compre 
hensive,  and  fruitful  in  the  personal 
development. 

In  association  with  a  man  of  great 
gifts  and  acquirements  the  richest 
gains  we  make  are  not  specific  addi 
tions  to  our  information,  but  breadth 
of  view,  depth  of  insight,  clearness 
of  vision,  re-enforcement  of  all  that  is 
most  aspiring  in  us.  It  is  the  vital, 
not  the  intellectual  contact  that  exerts 
the  most  enduring  influence  ;  it  is 
the  general  force  of  the  man,  not  his 


I2O 


Personal  Intimacy. 

specific  skill,  that  leaves  the  deepest 
impress  on  us.  In  like  manner,  in 
our  intercourse  with  Nature,  there  is 
something  which  flows  from  the 
totality  of  her  being  which  counts 
for  more  in  our  culture  than  any 
revelation  through  phenomena,  force, 
law,  or  beauty ;  something  which 
enters  into  us  rather  than  adds  to 
our  information,  and  which  becomes 
part  of  us.  Thoreau  had  a  know 
ledge  of  Nature  in  her  obvious  ap 
pearances  and  activities  to  which  his 
friend  and  neighbor  could  lay  no 
claim ;  but  it  detracts  not  a  whit 
from  Thoreau's  achievements  to  say 
that  Emerson  learned  more  from 
Nature  than  he,  and  stood  in  more 
intimate  and  vital  relationship  with 
her.  For  while  the  naturalist  studied 
the  world  about  him  with  senses  of 
marvellous  acuteness,  the  poet  and 

121 


Personal  Intimacy. 

thinker  so  allied  himself  with  that 
world  that  it  fed  the  very  springs  of 
his  being,  and  gave  him  constant 
suggestion  with  regard  to  the  sanest 
and  most  fruitful  methods  of  living 
his  life  and  attaining  the  truest  self- 
culture. 

There  is  nothing  esoteric  about  this 
fundamental  intimacy  with  Nature ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  very  simplicity 
of  the  relation  makes  it  difficult  of 
explanation.  It  is  an  elementary 
thing,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  re 
solved  into  simpler  elements.  It  is 
as  simple  as  the  intercourse  of  a 
child  with  its  mother ;  and,  like  that 
relationship,  it  is  mysterious,  sacred, 
inaccessible  to  all  save  those  who 
approach  it  in  the  right  spirit.  Like 
every  other  deep  relationship,  it  de 
pends  somewhat  on  aptitude,  but 
much  more  on  securing  the  right  con- 

122 


Personal  Intimacy. 

ditions  and  waiting  patiently  on 
growth.  It  is  easy  to  give  the  direc 
tions  for  acquiring  a  specific  skill 
because  a  series  of  definite  acts  is 
involved  ;  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  suggest  the  method  of  developing 
a  friendship  into  an  intimacy  because 
the  stages  of  its  growth  are  invisible 
and  the  means  are  spiritual.  There 
are,  however,  habits  and  qualities 
which  are  characteristic  of  those  who 
succeed  in  establishing  this  relation 
ship  with  Nature. 

They  are,  in  the  first  place,  very 
constantly  in  the  presence  and  com 
pany  of  Nature.  They  not  only 
seize,  they  make  opportunities  for 
getting  into  the  woods,  for  loitering 
in  the  fields,  for  exploring  the 
streams,  for  walking  across  the  coun 
try.  They  seek  the  most  secluded 
places  ;  they  devote  hours  and  days 
123 


Personal  Intimacy. 

to  quiet  meditation  or  observation 
as  far  as  possible  from  the  noise  of 
men.  Whenever  they  are  out  of 
doors  they  are  aware  of  Nature ; 
they  make  it  a  rule,  at  first,  to  take 
note  of  the  sky  and  the  landscape,  of 
the  changes  of  the  seasons  in  their 
most  elusive  registry  on  leaf  and 
grass,  and  presently  they  see  all 
these  things  without  any  conscious 
ness  of  meaning  to  see  them.  They 
constantly  emphasize  the  world  about 
them  by  constantly  seeing  it  and 
meditating  upon  it ;  and  so  it  comes 
to  pass  with  them  that  the  beautiful 
order  of  seasons,  stars,  flowers,  and 
verdure  which  surrounds  us,  and 
which  most  of  us  barely  notice,  be 
comes  a  constant  companionship  in 
their  most  secret  thoughts  and  in 
their  daily  occupations. 

These  persons  form  the  habit,  in 
124 


Personal  Intimacy. 

the  second  place,  of  leaving  their 
cares,  work,  interests,  and  self-con 
sciousness  behind  them  when  they 
go  out  under  the  clear  sky,  along  the 
country  road,  or  into  the  deep  woods. 
They  go  with  an  open  mind ;  they 
are  alert  to  observe,  but  they  are 
above  all  things  else  ready  to  receive 
whatever  truth,  power,  or  spirit  Na 
ture  has  to  impart.  They  are  in  the 
mood  to  put  themselves  in  the  deep 
est  harmony  with  the  world  about 
them  ;  to  enter  into  its  vast  move 
ment,  and  to  partake  of  its  measure 
less  life.  In  such  a  mood  much 
comes  to  a  man  from  which  he  is 
otherwise  cut  off.  For  deeper  in 
fluences  are  borne  in  upon  us  and 
become  incorporate  in  us  when  we 
keep  silent  than  when  we  speak  and 
act;  impulses,  emotions,  and  passions 
arise  within  us  when  we  are  with  our 
I2S 


Personal  Intimacy. 

fellows,  but  the  truths  that  carry 
conviction  and  work  substantial 
changes  in  us  become  clear  to  us  in 
solitude.  There  is  no  unreality 
about  all  this,  although  in  the  formal 
statement  it  seems  elusive  and  shad 
owy.  The  man  who  goes  into  the 
woods,  and  by  self-forgetful  ness  be 
comes  a  part  of  the  woods,  is  aware 
not  only  of  a  freshening  of  his  nature 
and  a  deepening  of  his  thought,  but 
also  of  a  revelation  of  knowledge 
through  closer  fellowship  with  the 
order  and  beauty  which  enfold  him. 
There  enters  into  his  mind,  in  such 
moods,  something  more  enduring 
than  the  scene  about  him  ;  something 
to  which  a  poet  will  give  expression 
in  verses  which  are  not  only  touched 
with  a  beauty  beyond  that  of  words, 
but  in  which  that  beauty  becomes 
the  symbol  of  truth.  The  man  who 
126 


Personal  Intimacy. 

lacks  the  gift  of  expression  will  not 
write  the  verse,  but  he  will  see  the 
beauty  and  be  enriched  by  the  truth. 
The  experience  of  the  coming  of  the 
landscape  unawares  into  the  mind 
finds  expression  in  one  of  Words 
worth's  most  characteristic  passages  : 

"  There  was  a  Boy  ;   ye  knew  him   well,   ye 

Cliffs 

And  islands  of  Winander  !  —  many  a  time, 
At  evening,  when  the  earliest  stars  began 
To  move  along  the  edges  of  the  hills, 
Rising  or  setting,  would  he  stand  alone, 
Beneath  the  trees,  or  by  the  glimmering  lake  ; 
And  then,  with  fingers  interwoven,  both  hands 
Pressed  closely  palm  to  palm  and  to  his  mouth 
Uplifted,  he,  as  through  an  instrument, 
Blew  mimic  hootings  to  the  silent  owls, 
That  they  might  answer  him.  —  And  they 

would  shout 

Across  the  watery  vale,  and  shout  again, 
Responsive  to  his  call,  —  with  quivering  peals, 
And  long   halloos,   and   screams,   and  echoes 

wild 

127 


Personal  Intimacy. 

Of   mirth    and  jocund    din  !     And,    when    it 

chanced 

That  pauses  of  deep  silence  mocked  his  skill, 
Then,    sometimes,    in    that    silence,    while  he 

hung 

Listening,  a  gentle  shock  of  mild  surprise 
Has  carried  far  into  his  heart  the  voice 
Of  mountain  torrents  ;   or  the  visible  scene 
Would  enter  unawares  into  his  mind, 
With  all  its  solemn  imagery,  its  rocks, 
Its  woods,  and  that  uncertain  heaven,  received 
Into  the  bosom  of  the  steady  lake. ' ' 

The  same  experience  is  set  forth  still 
more  strikingly  in  lines  which  seem 
to  have  been  spoken  by  Nature  her 
self,  so  beautifully  unaffected  and 
direct  are  they  :  — 

"  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 

That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills, 
When  all  at  once  I  saw  a  crowd, 
A  host  of  golden  daffodils  ; 
Beside  the  Lake,  beneath  the  trees, 
Fluttering  and  dancing  in  the  breeze. 
128 


Personal  Intimacy. 

"  Continuous  as  the  stars  that  shine 
And  twinkle  on  the  milky  way, 
They  stretched  in  never-ending  line 
Along  the  margin  of  a  bay  : 
Ten  thousand  saw  I  at  a  glance, 
Tossing  their  heads  in  sprightly  dance. 

"  The  waves  beside  them  danced,  but  they 
Outdid  the  sparkling  waves  in  glee  :  — 
A  poet  could  not  but  be  gay 
In  such  a  jocund  company  ; 
I  gazed  —  and  gazed  —  but  little  thought 
What  wealth  to  me  the  show  had  brought  : 

"  For  oft,  when  on  my  couch  I  lie 
In  vacant  or  in  pensive  mood, 
They  flash  upon  that  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude, 
And  then  my  heart  with  pleasure  fills, 
And  dances  with  the  daffodils." 

And  we  must  turn  to  the  same 
poet  for  the  expression  of  the  deeper 
experience  which  waits  on  the  open 
mind  in  closest  companionship  with 
Nature  ;  the  coming  into  the  mind 
9  129 


Personal  Intimacy. 

unawares  not  only  of  beauty  but 
of  truth,  the  discernment  of  the  in 
visible  order  behind  the  visible,  of 
the  spiritual  beyond  the  material : 

"  .   .    .    .   that  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery, 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world 
Is  lightened  :  that  serene  and  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on, — 
Until,  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul : 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things." 


130 


Chapter  XIII. 

The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

'  I  ^HIS  appropriation  of  Nature 
through  forgetfulness  of  self 
and  activity  of  the  imagination  is  a 
matter  of  growth.  It  cannot  be  ac 
complished  in  a  day  or  in  a  year. 
The  habits  of  observation  and  open- 
mindedness  must  become  so  fixed 
that  they  are  part  of  ourselves  before 
we  become  unconscious  of  them  and 
conscious  only  of  Nature.  Many  a 
man  is  so  beset  by  his  habitual  in 
terests  and  thoughts  that  silence  and 
solitude  serve  mainly  to  throw  his 
own  personality  into  more  distinct 
relief,  and  to  emphasize  the  things 
from  which  he  would  escape.  To 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

such  a  mood  Nature  can  make  no 
disclosure  of  herself,  because  she  is 
shut  out  of  sight  and  mind.  But  if 
the  man  persists  in  the  struggle  to 
free  himself  from  himself,  the  dissev 
erance  will  be  slowly  accomplished, 
and  the  time  comes  at  last  when 
Nature  is  born  again  in  the  soul  as  a 
new  resource.  Companionship  and 
open-mindedness  steadily  persisted 
in  will  break  down  all  barriers  of 
self-consciousness,  and  the  relation 
begun  in  the  merest  acquaintance  will 
ripen  into  the  most  fruitful  intimacy. 
The  myth-makers  read  Nature  as 
a  great  parable  of  life ;  in  imputing 
will,  reason,  and  feeling  to  inanimate 
things  they  interpreted  and  pictured 
the  world  about  them  in  terms  of 
their  own  experience.  Nature  be 
came  an  external  realization  of  them 
selves.  In  like  spirit,  although  by 
132 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

a  very  different  method,  the  man  who 
would  get  from  Nature  all  that  she 
offers  for  his  personal  culture  must 
re-establish  the  primitive  unity  of  con 
sciousness,  and  must  discern  in  the 
force,  the  order,  and  the  movement 
about  him  infinite  suggestion,  hint, 
and  guidance  for  his  own  develop 
ment.  He  must  regard  Nature  as  a 

o 

part  of  his  own  deepest  life  ;  a  sub 
lime  exposition  and  illustration  of 
the  methods  of  his  own  soul  in  its 
victorious  endeavor  to  realize  itself 
through  its  activity.  For  to  accept 
Nature  as  a  teacher,  one  must  not 
only  receive  the  definite  knowledge 
she  has  to  offer,  but  must  receive 
also  the  vital  influence  which  flows 
from  her  as  from  a  great  fountain  of 
vitality.  He  who  finds  his  true  rela 
tion  to  the  world  about  him,  is  in  the 
way  to  be  nourished,  enlightened,  and 
'33 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

unfolded  by  every  contact  with  that 
world;  and  in  noway  more  effectively 
than  by  carefully  studying  and  adopt 
ing,  as  the  spirit  and  method  of  his 
own  development,  the  spirit  and 
method  of  Nature.  The  man  who 
holds  this  attitude  will  not  only  get  for 
himself  all  that  Nature  has  to  impart 
of  specific  knowledge,  but  he  will  be 
in  the  way  of  that  mysterious  refresh 
ment  which  comes  to  those  who  can 
forget  themselves  in  the  woods  or 
fields,  and  also  of  those  deep  and 
thrilling  disclosures  of  truth  which 
are  sometimes  given  to  the  open 
mind  and  the  active  imagination. 

Emerson  more  than  once  empha 
sizes  the  fact  that  man  is  an  analo- 
gist ;  he  declares  that  cc  all  thinking 
is  analogizing,"  and  that  our  con 
stant  occupation  is  to  study  the  re 
lations  of  things.  cc  No  one  can 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

doubt/'  says  Miss  Blow  in  "  Sym 
bolic  Education,"  "  that  analogy  is 
the  key  to  the  process  of  primitive 
man.  To  its  influence  must  be  as 
cribed  the  universal  belief  of  sav 
ages  in  the  animation  of  all  natural 
objects.  Interpreting  the  world 
around  them  through  the  medium 
of  their  own  sensations,  they  endow 
all  objects  with  life,  feeling,  volition. 
In  their  conception,  sun  and  moon, 
clouds  and  winds,  sea  and  mountains 
are  animate  beings,  whose  lives  may 
be  interpreted  by  human  analogies." 
That  the  results  of  this  early  anal 
ogizing  are  misleading  and  inaccurate 
as  interpretations  and  explanations  of 
natural  processes  and  phenomena, 
does  not  impair  the  service  of  this 
universal  instinct  nor  weaken  its 
authority  as  a  method  of  discovery. 
Men  everywhere  and  in  all  stages  of 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

culture  analogize  because  the  universe 
is  compact  with  correspondences, 
and  knit  together,  part  with  part, 
in  inseverable  relations ;  one  fact 
sheds  light  on  another,  and  law  brings 
out  law,  the  world  over.  Every 
place  at  which  a  man  stands  is  a 
point  from  which  the  whole  order  of 
things  may  be  discerned,  because  he 
himself  is  part  of  that  order  and  all 
its  lines  run  through  him.  The 
myth-makers  —  the  children  of  the 
race  rather  than  its  fathers  —  were 
mistaken  in  imputing  to  Nature  fac 
ulties  and  feelings  like  their  own  ; 
but  under  the  fanciful  play  of  their 
thought  they  discerned  the  great 
truth  of  the  unity,  and,  therefore, 
of  the  deep  and  vital  relationships,  of 
all  things.  They  were  more  accurate 
in  their  dreams,  so  far  as  this  fun 
damental  conception  is  concerned, 
136 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

than  those  who  hold  Nature  to  be  a 
purely  material  creation,  having  no 
spiritual  significance  for  men. 

These  correspondences,  which  per 
vade  all  life,  make  the  universe  com 
prehensible,  and  give  it  that  sublime 
beauty  which  shines  through  it  when 
we  discern  its  spiritual  symbolism. 
We  explain  ourselves  by  Nature,  and 
we  comprehend  Nature  through  our 
knowledge  of  ourselves.  Light 
flashes  from  fact  to  fact,  from  law 
to  law.  We  discover  not  only  that 
one  aspect  of  the  world  involves  a 
corresponding  faculty  in  ourselves, 
or  vice  versa,  but  that  truth  along 
one  line  is  truth  along  all  lines  ;  so 
that  a  reconstruction  of  our  .notions 
of  geology,  biology,  or  psychology 
involves  a  reconstruction  of  our 
notions  of  theology.  We  find  our 
history  and  destiny  bound  up  with 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

every  science,  because  we  are  in  vital 
relationship  with  the  whole  order  of 
things  at  every  stage  of  its  mysteri 
ous  progression.  The  most  remote 
event  in  geology,  the  earliest  devel 
opment  in  biology,  affect  us  in  ways 
past  our  knowledge  ;  for  in  whatever 
direction  we  search,  we  find  corre 
spondence,  analogy,  and  relationship 
between  ourselves  and  the  things 
about  us.  The  dreams  of  youth 
often  have  a  prophetic  element  in 
them  ;  and  those  marvellous  dreams 
of  primitive  men  which  we  call 
mythology  had  in  them  a  vision 
of  a  truth  deeper  and  more  com 
prehensive  than  any  purely  material 
istic  interpretation  or  explanation  of 
natural  fact  or  process. 

This  discovery  of  correspondences 
and  relationships  bears    its    fruit  in 
science,  poetry,  philosophy,  and  those 
138 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

upper  reaches  of  thought  which  ally 
man  to  God  ;  but  it  is  also  the 
process  by  which  each  individual  in 
terprets  Nature  to  himself  and  ap 
propriates  the  material  and  method 
she  offers  for  his  own  culture.  Com 
panionship  and  open-mindedness  find 
their  supreme  rewards  in  this  dis 
covery  and  appropriation.  For  the 
man  who  persists  in  keeping  in  the 
society  of  Nature  and  opening  him 
self  to  her  influences  becomes  more 
and  more  skilled  in  perceiving  corre 
spondences  and  analogies  between 
the  processes  of  Nature  and  the  pro 
cesses  of  his  own  growth  ;  he  discerns 
with  increasing  distinctness  the  con 
crete  parable  of  his  life  constantly  be 
fore  him.  And  he  brings  the  methods 
of  his  own  unfolding  more  and  more 
into  harmony  with  the  methods  of 
Nature  ;  for  he  finds  in  their  marvel- 


The  Fundamental   Correspondences. 

lous  order  something  deeper,  more 
vital,  and  more  fruitful  than  aca 
demic  method  or  device ;  he  dis 
covers  the  laws  and  the  procedure 
of  life  itself. 


140 


Chapter  XIV. 

The  Creative  Force. 

/"T"NHE    analogy   between   the  pro- 

•*•  cesses  and  aspects  of  Nature 
and  the  method  and  order  of  our 
human  life  becomes  clear  to  a  man 
in  the  degree  in  which  he  feels  his 
vital  relationship  with  Nature  and 
realizes,  through  observation,  imagi 
nation,  and  meditation,  the  depth 
and  splendor  of  the  movement  about 
him.  We  are  no  sooner  involved  in 
consciousness  with  the  order  of  things 
than  we  begin  to  feel  the  measureless 
and  inexhaustible  vitality  which  fills 
that  order  to  its  very  last  manifesta 
tion.  Whichever  way  we  turn  we 
141 


The  Creative  Force. 

are  confronted  with  a  flooding  life 
which  clothes  the  world  as  with  a 
garment,  constantly  fading  and  fray 
ing,  but  constantly  re-woven  on  invisi 
ble  and  inaudible  looms.  Sometimes 
the  wave  recedes,  but  it  always  re 
turns  ;  and  even  in  its  ebb  we  have 
learned  to  find  the  definite  and  inevi 
table  promise  of  its  flood.  Winter  is 
concealment,  not  absence  of  life,  and 
the  woods  are  as  full  of  potential 
vitality  when  the  snow  covers  them 
as  when  the  summer  sun  strives  in 
vain  to  penetrate  the  depths  of  their 
foliage.  Life  climbs  from  the  low 
est  depth  of  animal  to  the  highest 
altitude  of  human  existence ;  from 
the  invisible  organism  in  an  invisible 
portion  of  water  to  the  most  massive 
tree.  It  flows  like  a  torrent  through 
Nature ;  and  the  visible  universe, 
seen  with  the  eye  of  science,  is  but 
142 


The  Creative  Force. 

the  product  of  a  mysterious  and  im 
measurable  stream  of  force  which  is 
so  allied  with  vitality  that  among  all 
animate  things  it  is  identical  with  it. 
And  the  story  of  the  earth,  told  by 
the  different  sciences,  is  the  story  of 
the  successive  stages  by  which  life 
has  advanced  from  form  to  form, 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.  We 
are  enfolded  in  a  vast  process,  in 
which  life  is  supreme,  and  which 
exists  in  order  that  the  purpose  of 
life,  the  design  involved  in  it,  may  be 
wrought  out.  Forms  change,  every 
visible  thing  is  subject  to  modifica 
tion,  decay,  and  final  dissolution ; 
but  life  passes  victoriously  on  from 
form  to  form,  and  it  is  only  when  it 
retires  from  the  form  it  once  filled 
out  and  sustained  that  the  process 
of  upbuilding  yields  to  the  process 
of  disintegration. 


The  Creative  Force. 

It  is  in  this  mysterious  force  which 
we  call  life,  and  in  the  movement 
through  which  it  manifests  itself, 
that  we  find  the  secret  and  source 
of  power.  This  is  the  sublime  en 
ergy  in  which  all  achievement  rests  ; 
for  this  is  the  elementary,  original, 
creative  force ;  the  force  that  makes, 
sustains,  and  preserves.  There  is 
nothing  else  which  creates  or  con 
serves  ;  nothing  else  which  has  the 
gift  of  immortality  ;  for  it  is  life  alone 
which  lives.  In  the  individual  career, 
as  in  the  vast  career  of  Nature,  it  is 
this  mysterious  force  which  vitalizes 
and  is  the  conduit  of  the  creative 
power ;  and  in  the  degree  in  which 
a  man  shares  this  mysterious  force  is 
he  original,  creative,  fecund.  Not  in 
skill,  device,  system,  artifice,  or  mech 
anism  is  originative  impulse  to  be 
found,  but  in  life ;  in  this  inexplica- 
144 


The  Creative  Force. 

ble  force  with  which  some  men  are 
charged  to  such  a  degree  that  they 
become  fountains  of  vitality :  they 
influence,  inspire,  dominate  their  age, 
their  contemporaries,  and  posterity. 
The  most  obvious  characteristic  of 
men  of  action  —  of  Alexander,  Cae 
sar,  Napoleon  —  is  a  kind  of  super 
human  vitality  ;  they  stand  for  energy 
incarnate  ;  they  cannot  rest ;  so  long 
as  they  act  under  the  conditions 
which  are  imposed  upon  all  men,  they 
are  invincible.  Everything  gives  way 
before  them,  and  institutions  change 
at  their  will  because  they  bring  life 
in  new  forms.  They  are,  to  recall 
Balzac's  phrase,  "  torrents  of  will ;  " 
rushing  streams  of  life,  which  make 
new  channels  in  human  history  and 
organization. 

In  like  manner  the  great  artists  are 
possessed  by  a  kindred  energy  of  life  ; 

10  145 


The  Creative  Force. 

they  are  insatiable  in  their  hunger  for 
experience ;  they  are  driven  at  times 
by  a  fury  of  passion  to  know,  to  feel, 
and  to  express  all  that  lies  within 
the  reach  of  a  man's  soul.  Some 
times,  as  in  the  case  of  Marlowe, 
they  recognize  no  limits  to  their 
power,  either  of  appropriation  or 
of  expression,  but  rush  on  to  com 
pass  the  impossible.  Homer,  Dante, 
Shakspeare,  and  Goethe ;  Phidias, 
Michael  Angelo,  Rembrandt ;  Bee 
thoven,  Schumann,  Wagner,  —  the 
representative  men  of  the  creative 
order  in  the  field  of  art ;  —  shared  in 
this  prodigious  endowment  of  vitality. 
They  lived  as  if  man  had  never  lived 
before,  as  if  they  were  the  first  pos 
sessors  of  this  marvellous  power,  the 
earliest  explorers  of  this  great  mys 
tery.  They  saw  the  world  with  eyes 
in  which  the  primeval  surprise  and 
146 


The  Creative  Force. 

wonder  still  lingered ;  they  saw  the 
earth,  the  heavens,  men,  and  women, 
and  the  movement  and  order  of  their 
being,  as  if  these  were  visible  for  the 
first  time.  They  felt  all  experience, 
through  their  own  living  or  through 
knowledge,  sympathy,  and  imagina 
tion,  as  if  experience  were  something 
new  and  unheard  of  before.  And 
what  they  saw  and  felt  they  expressed 
with  the  clearness,  the  vivacity,  the 
insight,  the  beauty,  and  the  power 
which  belong  to  the  first  vision,  the 
first  emotion,  and  the  first  utterance. 
They  had  various  gifts,  they  worked 
in  ways  widely  dissimilar,  and  they 
used  different  materials ;  but  the  qual 
ity  which  they  possessed  in  common, 
and  which,  beyond  all  their  gifts,  apti 
tudes,  and  skills,  characterizes  and 
explains  them,  is  their  measureless 
vitality.  They  were  alive  in  every 
147 


The  Creative  Force. 

sense ;  they  felt  with  the  unspent 
freshness  of  youth ;  they  spoke  with 
the  authority,  the  consciousness  of 
veracity,  the  indifference  to  denial  of 
discoverers. 

And  that  which  interested  them 
most  deeply  and  which  they  con 
stantly  strove  to  formulate  and  ex 
press  was  the  manifestation,  the 
working  out,  the  play  of  this  mysteri 
ous  force  which  flowed  through  them 
and  about  them.  They  were  con 
cerned  primarily  with  life  itself  in  all 
its  forms,  and  not  with  abstractions. 
They  saw  habit,  manner,  occupation, 
dress,  equipage,  social  order,  Church, 
and  State  not  as  fixed  and  final  things, 
existing  apart  from  men  in  an  abstract 
order,  but  as  the  outgrowth  of  human 
feeling,  acting,  and  living ;  and,  there 
fore,  as  endlessly  significant  of  man's 
mysterious  life.  It  was  due  to  no 
148 


The  Creative  Force. 

accident  that  the  Homeric  poems  are 
so  saturated  with  the  life  of  the  early 
Greeks ;  behind  customs,  manners, 
orders,  and  religion  the  makers  of  the 
epics  felt  that  life  so  deeply  and  were 
so  charged  with  it  that  they  could 
not  tell  a  story  without  imparting  it. 
It  was  the  reality  behind  the  forms 
and  institutions  with  which  they  were 
dealing,  and  it  was  the  reality  in  them 
selves.  In  his  wanderings  Dante 
brooded  ceaselessly  over  this  myste 
rious  force  which  works  itself  out  in 
ways  so  holy  or  so  unrighteous ;  the 
current  of  which  is  so  deep  and  irre 
sistible  that  it  cannot  be  confined  in 
the  channels  of  time  and  space,  but 
flows  on  into  the  shoreless  seas  be 
yond.  And  Shakspeare  apparently 
saw  nothing  else  ;  for  from  his  earliest 
to  his  latest  play  his  eye  searches  the 
experience  of  men  as  if  set  to  see  all 
149 


The  Creative  Force. 

that  is  in  life  and  to  force  from  it  a 
disclosure  of  its  secret  by  patiently 
showing,  in  drama  after  drama,  how 
it  is  wrought  out  in  human  destiny. 
These  original,  creative  natures  are 
not  only  compact  of  life,  but  they 
are  absorbed  by  it.  It  is  not  only 
their  distinctive  quality  and  gift, 
but  it  is  also  their  peculiar  problem. 
They  are  like  the  forces  of  Nature 
in  their  dependence  on  the  vital 
energy ;  but,  unlike  Nature,  they  are 
able  in  part  to  analyze,  comprehend, 
and  illustrate  or  represent  the  myste 
rious  power  which  is  in  them. 


Chapter  XV. 

The  Great  Revelation. 

TTTTIAT  is  there  in  this  quality 
which  we  call  life  that  gives 
it  such  potency  and  significance  ? 
Why  do  we  say  of  a  piece  of  art, 
when  it  strikes  home  to  our  imagina 
tions,  "  That  is  true  to  life  "  ?  Why 
do  we  feel  a  sudden  thrill  when  out 
of  novel,  poem,  oration,  or  play  there 
leaps  one  of  those  lines  which  by 
their  self-revealing  authority  and 
beauty  give  us  the  assurance  of  their 
truth  to  life  ?  Nothing  seems  more 
vague  and  difficult  to  grasp  than  the 
vital  element  in  Nature,  in  humanity, 
and  in  art ;  why  is  it,  then,  the  source 
of  all  that  endures,  the  end  and  cul- 


The  Great  Revelation. 

mination  of  all  forms  of  expression  ? 
The  more  we  study  the  mystery 
the  more  mysterious  does  it  be 
come;  but  only  because  all  elemen 
tary  and  vital  processes  are  wrapped 
in  mystery.  No  one  knows  what  it 
is  which  gives  the  flower  its  form  of 
beauty,  its  breath  of  fragrance,  its 
fresh  and  dewy  charm  ;  but  this  force, 
whatever  it  is,  is  the  reality  in  the 
flower,  and  mocks  all  human  skill  to 
reproduce  or  imitate  it.  After  it  has 
withdrawn  from  a  human  form,  every 
thing  that  the  eye  saw  remains,  but 
the  form  no  longer  means  anything. 
Perfect  as  it  is,  it  is  an  empty  shell. 
The  life  has  gone  out  of  it,  and  it  is 
nothing. 

This  mysterious  quality  is  so  po 
tent  and  precious  because  it  is  the 
elementary  principle ;  the  inexplic 
able,  unresolvable,  divine  element  in 


The  Great  Revelation. 

this  mass  of  matter,  which  separates 
death  from  life,  which  makes  con 
sciousness  possible,  and  which  brings 
in  its  invisible  current  all  possibilities 
of  knowledge,  feeling,  thought,  and 
action.  It  gives  matter  its  only  signi 
ficance,  and  imparts  to  visible  things 
of  all  kinds  their  only  value.  So 
precious  is  it  that  it  matters  little 
what  form  of  manifestation  it  takes 
on.  When  a  living  phrase  sounds 
in  our  ears  we  are  equally  spell 
bound,  whether  it  comes  out  of  the 
life  of  the  hero,  with  the  light  of  his 
great  deed  on  him,  or  out  of  the  life 
of  the  peasant  almost  invisible  in  his 
obscurity.  The  thing  that  comes 
home  to  us  everywhere  is  not  con 
dition  or  circumstance  ;  it  is  life. 
So  long  as  the  artist  penetrates  to  the 
life  and  reveals  it,  we  are  indifferent 
as  to  the  person  portrayed  or  de- 


The  Great  Revelation. 

scribed.  Life  alone  has  a  fixed  value 
in* art;  all  other  qualities  are  vari 
able.  When  we  get  beneath  the  sur 
face  and  touch  this  hidden  force,  we 
feel  that  we  are  face  to  face  with  the 
primal  mystery  ;  we  are  in  contact 
with  God.  For  this  is  the  force 
which  permeates  Nature  and  gives 
her  forms  their  meaning  and  their 
beauty  ;  and  this  also  is  the  force 
which  lifts  humanity  out  of  the  dust 
and  gives  it  its  dignity  and  oppor 
tunity.  It  eludes  us  ;  but  it  is  always 
the  supreme  thing  in  and  to  us. 

Beyond  this  elementary  value  life 
has  another  incalculable  interest  for 
us :  it  is  not  only  the  divine  ele 
ment  in  us,  but  in  its  working  out 
it  reveals  itself.  There  is  a  great 
thought  or  order  behind  Nature 
which  is  being  wrought  out  century 
after  century  in  all  forms,  phenom- 


The  Great  Revelation. 

ena,  forces,  and  processes  ;  and  the 
supreme  interest  of  the  universe  for 
man  lies  in  the  discovery  of  this 
thought  or  purpose.  That  thought 
is  being  gradually  disclosed  to  the 
observation  and  study  of  men,  and  as 
it  slowly  dawns  on  the  human  mind 
there  comes  with  it  the  conscious 
ness  that  man  is  reading  the  thought 
of  God,  that  the  human  mind  is 
coming  into  contact  with  the  divine 
mind.  So  every  bit  of  Nature, 
stone,  fish,  bird,  or  leaf  becomes 
precious  ;  they  are  all  parts  of  a 
whole ;  they  are  links  in  a  chain. 
Seen  in  the  light  of  this  sublime  dis 
covery  all  matter  is  penetrated  with 
thought.  In  like  manner,  through 
human  life  in  all  its  forms,  under  all 
its  conditions,  in  all  stages  of  its  un 
folding,  a  great  thought  or  order  is  be 
ing  wrought  out.  Sometimes  men  are 


The  Great  Revelation. 

conscious  of  this  order  and  co-operate 
with  it ;  sometimes  they  are  ignorant 
of  it  and  oppose  it ;  but  whether 
co-operating  or  antagonizing,  they  are 
always  bringing  it  into  clearer  light. 
The  law  is  revealed  as  distinctly  in 
the  punishment  it  inflicts  on  those 
who  violate  it  as  in  the  obedience  it 
secures  from  those  who  respect  it. 
Good  or  evil,  high  or  low,  illustrious 
or  obscure,  all  human  lives  disclose 
something  above  and  beyond  them, 
and  the  process  of  history  is  a  pro 
cess  of  revelation.  Men  are  contin 
ually,  under  all  conditions,  revealing 
what  is  in  them,  and  that  revelation 
carries  with  it  a  disclosure  of  the 
thought  or  order  which  explains  their 
natures  and  hints  at  their  destiny. 

Looking  at  races  in  the  perspective 
of  history,  we  see  clearly,  amid  much 
that  is  uncertain  and  obscure,  that 


The  Great  Revelation. 

each  race  has  wrought  out  some  idea 
in  a  way  peculiar  to  itself;  for  what 
we  call  the  genius  of  a  race  is  its 
spirit  or  way  of  looking  at  and  using 
its  opportunities.  Amid  all  the 
confusing  currents  and  movements 
of  Greek  life  we  discern  clearly 
enough  two  or  three  racial  character 
istics  ;  two  or  three  great  ideas 
brought  out  with  unmistakable  clear 
ness  and  illustrated  in  a  wide  range 
of  arts  and  achievements.  The 
Greek  race  stands  for  a  revelation  as 
well  as  for  a  history  ;  it  made  several 
things  clear  to  the  world.  It  was 
only  imperfectly  conscious  that  it  was 
bringing  these  ideas  to  the  light,  for 
in  its  best  estate  it  was  much  more 
occupied  with  living  than  with  spec 
ulating.  It  was  absorbed  in  living 
according  to  its  nature,  and  in  the 
act  of  living —  that  is,  of  working 


The  Great  Revelation. 

out  its  nature  —  it  made  great  addi 
tions  to  humanity's  knowledge  of 
itself,  its  life,  and  its  destiny.  The 
same  statement  may  be  made  with 
reference  to  every  race,  ancient  and 
modern  ;  and  not  only  with  reference 
to  every  race,  but  to  every  individual. 
The  great  figures  of  art  owe  their  in 
terest  to  the  fact  that  they  reveal 
something;  they  disclose  their  own 
natures,  and  therefore  they  throw 
light  upon  life  itself  We  study 
Hamlet  and  Faust  endlessly,  because 
beyond  the  personal  interest  they 
awaken,  they  lift  great  tracts  of  life 
out  of  the  primal  darkness  into 
light. 

There  is,  therefore,  in  every  bit  of 
life,  noble  or  ignoble,  beautiful  or 
repulsive,  great  or  small,  traces  of 
a  thought,  evidences  of  an  order, 
lines  of  design.  Every  bit  of  life  is 
158 


The  Great  Revelation. 

a  bit  of  revelation  ;  it  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  the  great  mystery  and 
the  great  secret.  In  every  such  dis 
closure  we  are  not  only  looking  at 
ourselves,  but  we  are  catching  a 
glimpse  of  God.  All  revelation  of 
life  has  the  spell,  therefore,  of  a  dis 
covery.  We  hold  our  breath  when 
we  hear  a  great  line  on  the  stage  for 
the  first  time,  or  come  upon  it  in 
a  book,  because  we  are  discovering 
something;  we  are  awed  and  hushed 
because  we  are  looking  into  the 
mystery.  There  is  the  thrill,  the 
wonder,  the  joy  of  seeing  another 
link  in  the  invisible  chain  which 
binds  us  to  the  past  and  unites  us  to 
the  future.  All  human  experience, 
action,  and  expression  is  permeated 
with  thought ;  not  with  the  thought 
of  the  individual  alone,  but  with  the 
thought  which  he  incarnates  and 


The  Great  Revelation. 

works  out.  So  every  touch  of  life 
in  art  —  even  the  slightest  fragment 
—  is  precious  to  us.  There  is  some 
thing  of  ourselves  in  it,  and  there  is 
something  of  God. 


1 60 


Chapter  XVI. 

Form  and  Vitality. 

~*HE  deep  and  all-embracing  cur 
rent  of  life  with  which  Nature 
surrounds  us,  and  which  constantly 
presses  upon  our  consciousness  as 
something  divinely  great  and  signifi 
cant,  begets  in  us,  by  the  irresistible 
force  of  analogy,  a  new  and  deepen 
ing  sense  of  life  as  the  source  of 
knowledge,  impulse,  and  enrichment. 
Whether  we  look  at  Nature  or  at 
art,  we  are  constantly  reminded  that 
the  form  is  secondary  to,  and  depend 
ent  upon,  vitality ;  that  life  is  every 
where  and  always  first,  and  that  skill, 
method,  contrivance,  are  always  and 
ii  161 


Form  and  Vitality. 

everywhere  subordinate.  The  evi 
dence  of  true  culture  is  a  deepened 
and  enlarged  life,  not  a  broadened 
knowledge ;  and  he  wholly  misses  the 
secret  of  culture  who  does  not  see 
that  it  is  an  inward  growth  and  that 
its  completeness  depends  on  vitality. 
If  it  be  true,  as  has  been  said,  that 
the  act  of  living  is  a  revelation  not 
only  of  what  is  in  the  man,  but  of 
that  which  is  being  wrought  out 
through  him,  then  every  man  who 
seeks  to  get  out  of  life  all  that  it  has 
to  give,  ought  to  seek,  not  to  shun, 
its  experiences.  Browning  has  set 
forth  in  many  ways,  with  all  the 
insight  and  force  of  his  genius,  the 
great  truth  that  experience  is  to  be 
sought,  not  to  be  shunned ;  for  he 
who  avoids  experience  avoids  also 
that  development  of  himself  in  which 
alone  we  really  live.  In  such  a  career 
162 


Form  and  Vitality. 

the  animal  life  within  us,  being  com 
fortably  housed,  fed,  and  clothed,  may 
go  on  without  incident,  emotion,  or 
change ;  but  there  is  a  complete  arrest 
of  the  life  of  the  soul.  The  body 
lives,  but  the  man  dies.  For  the  man 
lives  in  the  exact  degree  in  which  he 
shares  in  the  universal  process  of  liv 
ing  by  giving  freest  play  to  thought, 
emotion,  impulse,  and  activity. 

The  man  in  whom  culture  bears 
its  ripest  fruit  is  not  often  a  man  of 
action,  but  he  is  always  a  man  in 
whom  the  deepest  impulse  is  vital 
rather  than  intellectual,  and  whose 
supreme  interest  is  in  life  itself.  It 
is  surprising  to  discover,  when  one 
goes  over  the  list  of  the  masters  of 
the  arts,  how  true  this  is  of  them ; 
how  supreme  is  their  vital  interest, 
and  how  subordinate  their  intellectual 
interest  in  persons,  events,  and  ideas. 


Form  and  Vitality. 

To  say  of  a  work  of  art  that  it  is 
above  all  things  intellectual,  is  to 
assign  it  a  secondary  place ;  for  a 
great  work  of  art  must  issue  from  a 
deeper  source  than  the  intellect;  it 
must  issue  out  of  life  itself.  In  every 
such  work  the  intellectual  quality  is 
necessarily  high,  but  it  is  subordinate  ; 
the  springs  of  power  are  elsewhere. 
The  man  of  culture  need  not,  and  as 
a  rule  cannot,  share  in  the  engrossing 
activities  of  his  time  ;  vitality  is  not 
necessarily  evidenced  by  action ;  it  is 
evidenced  by  the  things  which  evoke 
the  deepest  interest  and  call  out  the 
fullest  sympathy.  Shakspeare  was 
only  in  a  very  limited  way  a  man  of 
action ;  but  he  has  portrayed  and 
interpreted  action  with  unrivalled  in 
sight  and  power,  because  his  interest 
was  in  human  life,  and  action  is  the 
ultimate  form  of  expression  of  that 
164 


Form  and  Vitality. 

life.  Matthew  Arnold,  Walter  Pater, 
Amiel,  Renan,  Lowell,  were  all  repre 
sentative  men  of  culture ;  men,  that 
is,  of  a  peculiar  ripeness  of  nature  and 
a  peculiar  command  of  beauty  of  ex 
pression.  There  is  an  impression 
among  many  people  that  they  were 
men  a  little  removed  from  their 
fellows  and  concerned  chiefly  with 
the  things  of  the  mind.  The  things 
of  the  mind  had,  it  is  true,  very  great 
charm  for  them ;  but  the  deepest 
interest  of  each  of  this  notable  group 
was  vital,  not  intellectual ;  it  was  an 
interest  in  men  as  men,  not  as  minds. 
"  Marius  the  Epicurean "  is  one  of 
the  text-books  of  culture,  so  full  is 
it  of  that  ripe  and  mellow  tone  which 
only  the  man  of  culture  commands ; 
but  it  is,  above  all  things,  the  record 
of  a  life,  not  of  a  mind ;  the  register 
of  a  growth  by  contact  with  life  in  a 


Form  and  Vitality. 

long  and  varied  series  of  experiences. 
Amiel's  "  Journal "  is  another  of  the 
text-books  of  culture  ;  but  it  is,  first 
and  foremost,  the  story  of  a  human 
soul.  And  as  for  Matthew  Arnold, 
his  interest  in  the  human  problem  is 
so  supreme  and  pressing  that  he  can 
not  resist  the  problems  of  the  hour, 
but  must  have  his  say  about  the  reli 
gious  question,  the  Irish  question, 
Disestablishment,  and  the  marrying 
of  deceased  wives'  sisters ! 
/In  the  process  of  culture,  that  which 
is  deepest  and  richest  is  this  deepen 
ing  and  widening  interest  in  the  life 
of  Nature  and  of  men ;  this  percep 
tion  that  in  these  kindred  but  sev 
ered  streams  of  vitality  the  potency 
of  all  growth  and  art  is  to  be  found. 
The  man  who  is  trying  to  make  the 
most  of  life  and  its  opportunities 
continually  comes  into  closer  contact 
16$ 


Form  and  Vitality. 

with  the  vital  stream  because  he  finds 
that  wherever  it  touches  him  it  en 
riches  him.  He  discovers  that  every 
person  he  meets,  whether  exalted  in 
station  or  obscure,  has  something  to 
impart  to  him.  One  of  the  most 
eloquent  and  influential  men  of  the 
century  in  this  country  made  it  a 
practice  to  learn  the  secrets  of  every 
man's  skill  and  experience,  so  far  as 
these  were  properly  communicable. 
From  the  pilot,  the  engineer,  the 
miner,  the  farmer,  the  artist,  he  drew 
whatever  was  most  significant  in  their 
history  and  occupation ;  and  so  he 
went  through  life,  enriching  himself 
with  those  accumulations  of  knowl 
edge  which,  although  in  private  hands, 
form  the  capital  of  the  race.  He  was 
only  in  a  subordinate  degree  a  student; 
but  he  became  a  man  of  culture  be 
cause  he  deliberately  drew  from  other 
167 


Form  and  Vitality. 

human  lives  what  they  had  learned. 
Nothing  is  more  significant  of  the 
universality  of  the  process  of  revela 
tion  through  human  life  than  the  fact 
that  whenever  a  great  writer  describes 
the  most  commonplace  persons,  in 
the  light  of  this  revelation,  these 
persons  at  once  become  absorbingly 
interesting.  When  George  Eliot  or 
Thomas  Hardy  studies  them,  the  vil 
lage  folk,  to  their  oldest  neighbors  so 
uninteresting,  become  at  once  comic, 
pathetic,  or  tragic.  The  laws  of  life 
are  being  worked  out  through  them, 
character  is  being  formed,  and  the 
great  story  of  man,  beside  which  all 
other  narratives  are  dull  and  colorless, 
is  written  in  their  occupations,  traits, 
habits,  and  experience.  Every  bit 
of  human  life  is  significant  and  pre 
cious  ;  that  is  the  first  lesson  which 
the  man  who  desires  to  bear  in  him- 
168 


Form  and  Vitality. 

self  the  ripest  fruits  of  culture  must 
learn. 

This  vital  disclosure  of  truth  is 
conveyed  to  us  not  only  in  all 
persons,  but  in  all  relations,  happen 
ings,  and  activities.  In  every  aspect 
of  life  there  is  the  revelation  of  a  law 
or  a  principle,  and  all  life  becomes 
educative  and  contributes  to  our 
enrichment  when  we  act  upon  this 
hint.  The  re-discovery  of  the  sanc 
tity  of  the  primary  and  universal 
relations  of  men  in  the  family,  the 
State,  and  the  Church  is  one  of  the 
great  achievements  of  this  century, 
and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
we  have  not  as  yet  begun  to  com 
prehend  what  these  relations  and  in 
stitutions  mean  in  their  educational 
influence  upon  us ;  in  the  light  they 
throw,  either  directly  or  by  analogy, 
on  the  deepest  human  problems ; 
169 


Form  and  Vitality. 

and  in  the  immense  deepening  of 
impulse  and  experience  which  they 
effect  in  humanity  at  large.  When 
we  have  taken  the  attitude  of  teacha 
bleness,  all  things  teach  us,  and  life 
sweeps  past  us,  not  to  devastate  but 
to  enrich  us ;  all  experience  ripens  us, 
as  the  Nile  turns  Egypt  from  barren 
ness  to  bloom.  And  when  we  turn 
to  art  we  find  ourselves  searching 
more  and  more  eagerly  for  the  life 
behind  the  form ;  for  we  realize  that 
the  form  is  the  fruit  of  the  life.  We 
cannot  comprehend  Job,  Isaiah,  and 
Paul  until  we  have  learned  the 
Hebrew  temperament  and  thought; 
we  are  shut  out  of  the  innermost 
beauty  of  Greek  art  in  sculpture, 
building,  poetry,  and  oratory,  until 
we  have  discerned  the  genius  of  the 
Greek  race.  All  these  great  artists 
and  all  these  great  arts  lead  us  back 
170 


Form  and  Vitality. 

to  the  vital  force  whose  exponents 
and  achievements  they  were.  For  in 
the  world  of  men,  as  in  that  of  Nature, 
it  is  that  force  which  creates,  fertilizes, 
and  sustains  ;  and  we  are  able  to  make 
the  most  of  ourselves  only  as  we  keep 
in  its  current. 


171 


Chapter  XVII. 

The  Method. 

'T'^HE  deepest  and  most  inclusive 
•*•  impression  which  Nature  con 
veys  to  us  is  that  of  exhaustless 
vitality ;  all  other  impressions  are 
subordinate  to  this,  and  are,  indeed, 
involved  in  it ;  for  the  life  within 
every  natural  form  is  that  which 
gives  it  interest  and  significance. 
And  next  in  importance  to  the  fact 
of  life  comes  the  method  of  life,  — 
growth.  Through  an  endless  series 
of  phases  the  life  of  the  physical  world 
has  manifested  and  worked  itself  out ; 
but  in  all  times,  so  far  as  we  know, 
in  every  sphere  and  stage,  in  every 
172 


The  Method. 

form  and  condition,  the  method  has 
been  the  same.  Wherever  life  holds 
its  own  in  the  world,  growth  takes 
place ;  life  and  growth  are  every 
where  bound  together  so  closely 
that  it  is  impossible  to  see  the  one 
without  seeing  the  other ;  for  life 
appears  to  have  no  other  way  of 
manifesting  itself.  From  the  seed  to 
the  fruit  in  which  the  plant  fulfils  its 
nature  and  function,  from  the  egg  to 
the  perfected  animal,  from  the  pri 
mordial  cell  to  the  complete  man, 
the  process  by  which  life  evolves  its 
potency  and  discloses  its  aims  is  the 
process  of  growth.  No  other  method 
is  known  to  Nature ;  and  the  univer 
sality  of  this  method,  and  the  com 
pleteness  with  which,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  life  is  limited  to  it  and  identified 
with  it,  puts  it  in  importance  on  a 
level  with  the  mysterious  force  to 


The  Method. 

which  it  is  bound  in  indissoluble 
union.  So  completely  are  life  and 
growth  involved  in  each  other  that 
we  cannot  conceive  of  either  apart 
from  the  other ;  they  are  as  thoroughly 
blended  together  as  thought  and  style 
in  the  highest  order  of  writing. 

Growth  is  a  vital  as  distinguished 
from  a  mechanical  process ;  it  par 
takes,  therefore,  of  the  mystery  which 
envelops  the  essence  of  life  wher 
ever  it  appears ;  it  is  inexplicable  and 
unresolvable.  It  cannot  be  under 
stood,  and  it  cannot  be  imitated ;  it 
has  the  perennial  interest  and  wonder 
of  the  miraculous ;  there  is  an  ele 
ment  of  the  divine  in  it  because  it  is 
God's  way  of  working  in  this  world. 
As  we  study  it  the  impression  deepens 
within  us  that  we  are  face  to  face  with 
a  power  not  ourselves  ;  with  a  method 
which  not  only  transcends  our  under- 
174 


The  Method. 

standing,  but  from  which  our  finest 
skill  is  differentiated  not  only  in 
degree  but  in  kind.  Men  have  done 
wonderful  things  with  thought,  craft, 
and  tools ;  but  the  manner  of  the 
unfolding  of  a  wild-flower  is  as  great 
a  mystery  to-day  as  it  was  when  sci 
ence  began  to  look,  to  compare,  and 
to  discover.  We  can  master  the  con 
struction  of  Westminster  Abbey  or 
of  the  Cathedral  at  Amiens,  but  the 
primrose  and  the  aster  keep  their 
secret  inviolate.  Between  the  thing 
that  grows,  however  simple  in  organi 
zation,  and  the  thing  that  is  made, 
however  complex  and  highly  elabo 
rated,  there  is  a  gulf  set  which  has 
never  been  crossed.  Mechanism  is 
marvellous,  but  growth  is  miraculous  ; 
and  the  two  are  set  in  perpetual 
contrast. 

The  most  obvious  characteristic  of 


The  Method. 

growth  is  the  fact  that  it  is  an  unfold 
ing,  an  expansion  from  within,  a  de 
velopment  of  some  germinal  form  ;  it 
proceeds  not  by  additions  from  with 
out,  but  by  evolution  from  within. 
The  seed  so  entirely  disappears  in 
the  process  which  it  sets  in  motion 
that  it  would  never  be  connected  with 
the  fully  grown  plant  but  for  the 
reproductive  function  which  binds 
the  last  stage  to  the  first ;  the  acorn 
is  so  swallowed  in  the  tremendous 
life  which  is  liberated  from  its  tiny 
shell  that  no  one  would  dream  of  its 
relation  to  the  oak  if  the  tree  did  not 
bear  again  the  seeds  of  other  trees  as 
vast  as  itself.  But,  despite  the  dis 
parity  between  the  seed  and  the  plant, 
the  acorn  and  the  oak,  all  the  possi 
bilities  of  these  marvellous  unfoldings 
are  wrapped  up  in  the  insignificant 
germs.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
176 


The  Method. 

massive  structure  of  the  oak  which 
was  not  potentially  in  the  acorn, 
nothing  in  the  delicate  loveliness  of 
the  rose  that  was  not  in  the  bit  of 
hard  stuff  from  which  it  grew.  There 
has  been  no  change  of  nature,  no 
addition  of  foreign  substances  ;  there 
has  been  simply  the  complete  unfold 
ing  of  all  the  possibilities  of  vitality, 
magnitude,  form,  and  beauty  which 
were  folded  up  in  the  germ.  There 
is  perhaps  nothing  more  incredible  in 
Nature  than  the  development  of  the 
oak  from  the  acorn,  when  one  takes 
into  account  the  almost  incompre 
hensible  disparity  of  size  between 
the  two  and  the  force  put  forth  in 
lifting  so  vast  a  mass  to  such  a  height 
in  the  air,  and  anchoring  it  so  firmly 
in  the  ground  that  the  rage  of  the 
elements  leaves  it  unscathed.  Before 

such    a    mystery   of  vital    expansion 
12  I77 


The  Method. 

science  stands  silent ;  for  the  result 
has  been  achieved  so  silently,  with 
such  ease,  with  such  absence  of 
tools  and  implements,  with  such  con 
tinuity  of  action,  that  the  tree,  like  a 
great  work  of  art,  gives  no  hint  of 
the  process  by  which  it  was  made. 
It  was  not  made,  it  grew ;  and  that 
is  all  we  can  say  about  it. 

The  perfection  to  which  it  finally 
comes  in  type,  form,  and  color  is 
conditioned  on  the  completeness  with 
which  the  potentialities  of  the  original 
germ  are  developed.  Nature  makes 
distinct  and  highly  organized  types ; 
she  does  not  make  incongruous 
aggregations  of  unrelated  materials. 
She  does  not  artificially  bring  to 
gether  materials  which  have  no  deep 
affinity  ;  she  starts  from  a  living  germ, 
and  that  germ  takes  to  itself  the  sub 
stances  which  are  vitally  related  to 
178 


The  Method. 

it,  and  rejects  all  other  substances. 
It  does  not  enlarge  itself  by  addition, 
but  by  expansion ;  and  the  result  is 
not  a  mechanical  combination,  but  a 
new  and  independent  creation,  sym 
metrical,  harmonious,  and  complete. 
Through  a  thousand  forms,  in  the 
greatest  apparent  confusion  and  com 
plexity  of  condition,  Nature  uner 
ringly  perfects  her  types;  a  host  of 
living  things  grow  together  out  of  the 
same  soil,  in  the  same  atmosphere, 
under  the  same  sky ;  but  these  living 
things  never  lose  their  individuality. 
On  the  contrary,  they  intensify  and 
clarify  it. 

This  type  is  determined  by  the 
germ;  but  the  germ  reaches  out  and 
fulfils  its  potentialities  of  growth  and 
life  only  as  it  is  nourished  and  en 
riched  by  the  elements  which  sur 
round  it.  The  process  involves  two 
179 


The  Method. 

great  factors :  a  vital  germ  at  the 
centre,  which  has  the  instinct  or  fac 
ulty  of  selection ;  and  soil,  air,  light, 
heat,  and  moisture,  which  minister  to 
and  make  possible  this  unfolding. 
The  seed,  the  blade,  the  fully  devel 
oped  tree,  shrub,  or  grain  need  nour 
ishment,  and  so  they  take  freely  from 
the  soil,  the  atmosphere,  and  the  sky  ; 
but  what  they  take  they  incorporate 
into  themselves.  The  germ  expands 
a  thousand-fold,  taking  to  itself  mate 
rial  from  without,  which,  in  bulk  and 
weight,  dwarfs  it  into  insignificance ; 
but  it  is  not  overwhelmed  and  lost ; 
on  the  contrary  it  recasts  the  mass 
which  it  appropriates,  masters  it, 
shapes  it  to  new  ends,  and  subordi 
nates  it  wholly  to  its  own  purposes. 
So  completely  does  it  possess  itself 
of  that  which  it  takes  out  of  the  ele 
ments  that  all  trace  of  the  distinctive 
180 


The  Method. 

form  and  existence  of  these  elements 
disappears.  The  most  searching  anal 
ysis  cannot  separate  the  different  sub 
stances  which  have  gone  to  the 
making  of  a  rose ;  the  delicate  and 
sensitive  flower,  whose  life  is  a 
bloom  and  a  breath,  seems  like  a 
spiritualization  of  the  particles  of 
matter  which  have  entered  into  it, 
a  fragrant  soul  escaping  from  the 
body  of  earth  which  imprisoned  it. 
In  that  final  synthesis  of  growth  we 
are  confronted  with  the  universal 
miracle  of  harmonious  and  independ 
ent  creation  out  of  a  mass  of  material 
which  gave  no  hint  either  of  the  form 
of  the  final  product  or  of  its  captivat 
ing  loveliness.  The  secret  of  this 
preservation  of  the  type  in  such  a 
vast  complexity  of  conditions  is 
found  in  the  law  under  which  each 
living  germ  selects  and  appropriates 
181 


The  Method. 

those  elements  only  which  are  vitally 
related  to  its  own  structure  and  qual 
ity.  Each  germ  takes  those  elements 
which  it  can  assimilate  and  rejects 
all  others.  Surrounded  by  countless 
other  germs,  in  a  world  which  pre 
sents  the  greatest  variety  of  those 
foods  which  nourish  plant  life,  each 
germ,  without  hesitation,  uncertainty, 
or  pause,  unerringly  takes  what  be 
longs  to  it,  and  is  as  indifferent  to  all 
foreign  substances  as  if  they  did  not 
exist.  So  the  type  preserves  its  in 
tegrity  in  a  world  full  of  substances 
which,  but  for  the  law  which  governs 
its  development,  would  mar  its  indi 
viduality  and  make  its  perfection 
impossible. 


182 


Chapter  XVIII. 

Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

'  I  ^HIS  is  also  the  method  of  men 
-*•  and  women  of  the  creative  order. 
The  distinctive  quality  of  original 
persons  is  sharp,  clear,  definite  indi 
viduality  ;  unmistakable  integrity  of 
type.  Minds  of  the  highest  rank 
are  characterized,  not  by  immense 
acquirements,  but  by  adequate  self- 
development,  and  by  complete  ad 
justment  to  the  life  about  them ;  by 
a  connection  with  that  life  so  vital 
and  intimate  that  they  gather  it  into 
themselves  and  become,  in  a  free  and 
noble  sense,  its  highest  products. 
'83 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

The  man  of  genius  is  no  more  sepa 
rated  from  his  fellows  than  is  the 
mountain  peak  from  the  earth ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  higher  the  peak  the 
greater  the  mass  of  earth  which  lifts 
it  skyward.  Genius  involves  not 
less,  but  more  humanity  in  its  pos 
sessor  ;  it  implies  not  separation  from, 
but  identification  with,  humanity. 
Homer  stood  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  Greek  race;  he  was  their  debtor 
quite  as  much  as  they  were  his.  But 
Homer  did  not  annex  to  his  own 
experience  in  any  external  way  the 
experience  of  his  race  ;  he  absorbed 
that  experience  and  made  it  his  own. 
Moreover,  he  took  only  what  was 
vitally  related  to  himself;  he  was  a 
Greek  to  the  heart ;  the  great  typical 
man  of  his  race.  If  he  had  attempted 
to  be  also  a  Persian,  an  Egyptian,  or 
a  Phoenician,  his  would  never  have 
184 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

become  the  clear,  resonant  voice  of 
all  Greece,  nor  would  his  work  be 
the  common  possession  of  all  modern 
speech. 

That  which  impresses  us  in  writing 
of  the  highest  order  is  not  miscella 
neous  knowledge,  but  flavor,  raciness, 
individuality,  the  tang  of  the  race 
and  the  soil.  A  secondary  writer 
may  have  scholarship,  skill,  talents 
of  various  kinds,  but  his  words  do 
not  strike  home  to  the  imagination  ; 
they  do  not  impress  us  as  being  in 
evitable  ;  we  are  conscious  that  they 
might  have  been  written  in  any  cli 
mate,  under  any  sky.  Burns's  songs, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  as  unmistaka 
bly  a  product  of  Scotch  soil  as  the 
heather ;  and  Scott's  greater  stories  are 
indissolubly  welded  to  local  tradition, 
legend,  and  history.  To  take  an 
illustration  nearer  home,  the  "  Scarlet 
185 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

Letter "  could  not  have  been  written 
outside  of  New  England.  Its  roots 
are  sunk  deep  in  the  deposit  of  cen 
turies  of  Puritan  thought  and  feeling. 
Writers  of  the  order  of  Burns,  Scott, 
and  Hawthorne  assimilate  all  the  ele 
ments  of  the  soil,  the  atmosphere,  and 
the  sky  which  are  vitally  related  to 
their  own  natures  and  harmonious 
with  their  own  genius,  and  perfect 
their  personality  by  taking  on  the 
personality  of  their  race.  There  is 
no  loss  of  individuality  in  this  pro 
cess  ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  a  vast 
enlargement  and  clarification  of  per 
sonality.  A  notable  and  beautiful 
illustration  of  this  clear  and  victori 
ous  development  of  a  type  by  assimi 
lation  of  what  was  harmonious  in  its 
surroundings  is  furnished  by  the 
career  and  character  of  Lincoln,  who 
was  not  only  a  complete  individual 
186 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

type,  but  a  perfect  national  type  as 
well,  — 

"  New  birth  of  our  new  soil, 
The  first  American." 

He  appropriated  from  his  country, 
his  people,  and  his  time  that  for 
which  his  nature  had  an  affinity,  and 
he  became  original,  creative,  typical, 
by  self-unfolding.  A  man  of  this 
temper  and  methods  uses  books  and 
technical  processes,  but  is  never  their 
product.  Whatever  he  takes  of  dis 
cipline,  training,  or  knowledge,  he 
makes  so  completely  a  part  of  him 
self  that  the  processes  and  materials 
are  entirely  lost  in  the  final  product. 
His  discipline  and  training  leave  no 
trace  save  in  his  self-command,  his 
skill,  and  his  effectiveness.  His 
knowledge  is  so  blended  with  his 
experience  that  he  completely  pos- 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

sesses  it,  instead  of  being  possessed 
by  it  as  is  the  pedant ;  and  when  he 
gives  it  out  in  expression,  it  has  taken 
some  new  form  or  received  some 
fresh  interpretation.  He  uses  expe 
rience,  knowledge,  all  the  materials 
of  power  which  surround  him,  not 
to  efface  the  lines  along  which  his 
nature  craves  development,  but  to 
emphasize  them.  In  every  form  of 
expression  he  gives  us  not  his  ac 
quirements  but  himself;  and  his  ac 
quirements  return  to  us  so  merged  in 
the  final  product  that  we  cannot  trace 
them.  A  nature  which  has  this  power 
of  drawing  upon  all  the  sources  of 
influence,  intelligence,  and  vitality 
about  it,  becomes  clairvoyant  and 
typical.  It  attains  such  profound 
and  unconscious  harmony  with  the 
life  in  which  it  is  enfolded  and  by 
which  it  is  nourished  that  it  speaks 
1 88 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

at   last  out     of  the  depths    of  that 
life  and  reveals  its  secrets. 

A  man  of  this  temper  knows  what 
is  in  the  heart  of  his  race.  He  feels 
every  movement  of  its  unconscious 
life ;  he  divines  its  thought ;  and  he 
becomes  in  the  end,  on  a  colossal 
scale,  the  man  of  his  time  and  his 
people.  He  is  simple,  harmonious, 
individual.  Such  a  man  was  Tour- 
guenieff;  in  certain  respects  the  most 
marvellous  race  interpreter  of  modern 
times.  An  artist  of  subtle  and  splen 
did  gifts,  he  seemed  to  know  intui 
tively  all  the  secrets  of  the  Russian 
people ;  and  in  those  compact  and 
impressive  stories  of  his,  so  free  from 
all  extraneous  discussion,  so  concen 
trated  in  spirit  and  action,  so  swift 
and  deep  and  powerful  in  sentiment 
and  movement,  the  Slavonic  nature 
breathes  and  suffers  and  acts.  From 
189 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

this  point  of  view  a  further  reference 
to  Lincoln  is  almost  inevitable.  Born 
and  bred  on  the  old  frontier,  with 
the  scantiest  formal  education,  un 
couth  in  figure,  he  seemed  to  many, 
in  the  critical  hour  when  he  became 
President,  fatally  untrained  for  the  re 
sponsibilities  of  the  time  and  the  place. 
When  the  news  of  his  nomination 
was  received  in  a  certain  university 
town,  a  teacher  of  high  character  and 
wide  culture  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  the  country  would  have  a  good 
man  in  the  White  House  if  only 
some  better  trained  man  could  write 
his  messages  and  speeches  for  him ! 
Those  messages  and  speeches  are, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  lyrics, 
the  only  literature  of  the  great  strug 
gle.  At  least  three  of  those  public 
utterances  have  already  become  clas 
sics,  not  only  because  of  their  eleva- 
190 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

tion  and  nobility  of  thought  and 
feeling,  but  because  of  their  rare 
beauty  of  style.  Among  all  the 
speakers  of  his  time,  accomplished 
orators,  students  of  rhetoric,  masters 
of  the  art  of  eloquence,  Lincoln  is 
the  only  one  whose  speeches  are 
likely  to  survive. 

This  superiority,  it  is  hardly  neces 
sary  to  say,  was  neither  accidental 
nor  spontaneous  ;  like  all  superiority, 
it  rested  on  a  solid  basis  of  prepara 
tion.  Lincoln  was,  in  some  respects, 
the  most  genuinely  educated  man  or 
his  time ;  but  his  education  was  vital, 
not  formal ;  individual,  not  academic. 
There  is  no  antagonism  between 
these  two  kinds  of  education  ;  on 
the  contrary,  in  the  ideal  training 
they  must  always  combine  and  har 
monize.  There  is  a  disposition,  how 
ever,  to  assume  that  formal  education 
191 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

is  the  only  education.  From  this 
point  of  view  men  like  Shakspeare 
and  Lincoln  are  inexplicable.  For 
every  great  work  of  art  involves  ade 
quate  education  ;  chance  is  as  finally 
barred  out  of  the  world  of  art  as  it  is 
out  of  the  world  of  nature. 

Lincoln's  education  becomes  more 
complete  the  more  one  studies  it. 
In  his  own  way  he  acquired  a  knowl 
edge  of  his  people,  of  his  time,  of 
himself,  and  of  a  few  books^  which, 
in  its  depth  and  thoroughness,  made 
him  the  master  not  only  of  a  great 
movement  but  of  a  great  language. 
Men  of  the  type  of  Gladstone  and 
Sumner  give  the  impression  of  having 
sought  near  and  far  for  information 
and  illustration.  They  impress  us 
as  having  made  large  conquests  in 
the  field  of  knowledge ;  but  we  are 
soon  aware  that  their  gain  has  been 
192 


Distinctness  of  Individuality. 

more  by  conquest  than  by  incor 
poration.  They  have  annexed  rather 
than  absorbed.  In  the  speeches  of 
both  these  eminent  men  of  affairs  we 
hear  the  voice  of  the  student  rather 
than  the  voice  of  the  man.  Lincoln, 
on  the  other  hand,  always  gives  us 
a  single  harmonious  impression  of 
himself.  We  are  always  in  contact 
with  the  man,  Whatever  knowledge 
he  has  acquired  and  whatever  training 
he  has  received  are  tributary  to  the 
original  force  of  his  own  personality. 
And  this  is  true  of  all  men  of  the 
creative,  as  contrasted  with  the  sec 
ondary,  order ;  they  are  never,  under 
any  circumstances,  eclectics  ;  they  are 
always,  under  all  circumstances,  in 
tensely  individual  They  are  never 
composite ;  they  are  always  strongly 
marked  types.  Lincoln  took  the  ele 
ments  for  which  he  had  an  affinity  J 
all  others  he  left  alone. 
13  193 


Chapter  XIX. 

Vital  Selection. 

age  has  needed  to  learn  this 
lesson  of  enrichment  by 
growth,  by  development  of  what  is 
germinal  within  us,  and  by  selection 
of  what  is  vitally  related  to  us  in  the 
world  about  us  more  than  our  own 
eager,  restless,  eclectic  time,  with  its 
widesympathies  and  its  tireless  curios 
ity,  its  tolerant  temper,  its  measureless 
thirst  for  knowledge.  The  endeavor 
of  too  many  men  and  women  of  this 
generation  is,  not  to  develop  their  own 
personality,  but  to  absorb  the  knowl 
edge  of  the  whole  world.  They  are 
194 


Vital  Selection. 

anxious  to  place  all  religions  on  the 
same  basis  of  authority,  to  harmo 
nize  on  the  instant  the  conclusions  of 
all  schools  of  thought,  to  drain  all 
the  sciences  of  their  ultimate  truths, 
to  practise  all  the  arts,  and  to  gather 
about  themselves  the  products  of  the 
handicrafts  of  the  entire  globe.  The 
result  is  an  immense  extension  of  in 
tellectual  interests  and  activities,  and 
in  many  cases  a  fatal  blighting  of  in 
dividuality.  The  note  which  such 
persons  give  forth  in  various  forms 
of  expression  ceases  to  be  clear, 
authoritative,  and  prophetic ;  it  is 
muffled,  indistinct,  and  non-reso 
nant.  It  is  made  up  of  echoes. 

It  is  not  unusual,  in  these  days,  to 
hear  men  and  women  of  intelligence 
use  vocabularies  made  up  entirely  of 
generalized  words  ;  words  of  such 
vast  and  vague  implication  that  not 


Vital  Selection. 

one  phrase  strikes  fire,  not  one  sen 
tence  bites  into  the  mind.  Every 
thing  is  misty,  uncertain,  indefinite. 
A  fog  seems  to  envelop  the  entire 
field  of  thought.  Through  this  fog, 
impressive  outlines  sometimes  loom 
portentous  for  the  moment ;  but 
they  dissolve  and  fade  into  nothing 
ness  the  instant  we  begin  to  feel  that 
we  are  coming  into  contact  with  real 
ity.  There  is  no  reality  in  this  kind 
of  intellectual  activity,  as  there  is  no 
conveyance  of  thought,  no  real  ex 
pression  of  individual  conviction  or 
force  in  the  utterances  of  those  who 
succumb  to  this  disintegrating 
method  ;  a  method  which  destroys 
originality  and  makes  a  genuine  in 
tellectual  life  impossible.  A  vocab 
ulary  is  never  effective,  expressive, 
and  authoritative  unless  it  is  vitally 
related  to  the  person  who  uses  it,  is 
196 


Vital  Selection. 

determined  by  his  nature  and  grows 
out  of  his  experience.  It  is  a  gar 
ment  woven  in  the  invisible  chambers 
of  a  man's  inmost  life,  —  not  a  mass 
of  garments  gathered  at  random  in 
Algiers,  Jerusalem,  Athens,  and  Cal 
cutta,  and  worn  without  reference  to 
variation  and  difference  of  size,  color, 
or  design.  In  language,  as  in  all 
forms  of  expression,  freshness,  force, 
and  sincerity  depend  on  the  vital 
relation  between  the  thought  and  the 
word.  A  vocabulary  of  generalized 
words  has  no  more  reality  of  rela 
tionship  with  the  person  who  uses  it 
than  has  the  ugly  idol  he  imports 
from  India,  or  the  Bayeux  tapestry 
which  he  buys  in  Paris  or  London  ; 
it  is  a  manner  of  speech  which  has 
been  borrowed,  and  which  has  no  sig 
nificance,  therefore,  as  a  disclosure  of 
temperament  and  character.  It  im- 
'97 


Vital  Selection. 

plies  nothing   in  the  way  of  intellec 
tual  quality  or  habit  save  a  retentive 
memory.     The  arts  furnish  a  conclu 
sive  illustration  of  the  law  of  growth 
which,  in  the  natural  world,  develops 
the  perfect  type,  and  in  the  world  of 
man  the  creative  mind.      In  art  defi- 
niteness  of  thought  and  sureness  of 
touch  are  the  fixed  conditions  of  suc 
cess  ;    everything  turns  on  absolute 
clarity  of  vision  and  distinctness  of 
execution.     Confusion  of  inharmoni 
ous  ideas  and  vagueness  of  treatment 
are  fatal    to    originality  or  effective 
ness.     The  method  of  setting  forth 
the    highest    ideals    of  character,    of 
beauty,  or  of  thought,  is  simple  and 
unmistakable:   it  is  through  the  per 
fection  of  the  type.     The  beauty  and 
power  with  which  the  general  concep 
tion  or  the  universal  experience  are  set 
forth,  depend  on  the  definiteness  with 
198 


Vital  Selection. 

which  the  individual  type  is  realized. 
A  literary  artist  of  the  third  class, 
who  wished  to  express  the  passion 
of  ambition,  would  brood  over  the 
idea  and  finally  shape  a  character  to 
illustrate  it ;  and  the  result  would  be 
an  inferior  piece  of  work,  in  which 
the  abstract  idea,  which  properly  be 
longs  to  philosophy,  would  be  pri 
mary  ;  and  the  concrete  illustration, 
which  is  the  distinctive  creation  of 
art,  would  be  secondary.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  a  great  artist  like 
Shakspeare  deals  with  the  problem, 
he  creates  a  marvellously  distinct 
personality  like  Macbeth,  so  real,  so 
individual,  so  instinct  with  life,  that 
in  the  very  perfection  of  his  flesh  and 
blood,  the  reality  of  his  relation  to 
the  world  about  him,  he  becomes  for 
ever  after  an  incarnation  of  the  pas 
sion  which  masters  him.  In  the  very 
199 


Vital  Selection. 

narrowing  of  the  general  idea  into 
the  limits  of  a  genuine,  breathing 
human  spirit  its  depth  and  reality  are 
finally  disclosed  with  almost  over 
whelming  impressiveness.  Vague 
generalizations  have  no  power  to 
inspire  the  artist ;  success  in  this 
highest  and  most  permanent  of  all 
forms  of  expression  depends  on  defi 
nite,  clearly  realized,  strongly  marked 
types  ;  and  the  more  perfect  the  type 
the  wider  and  more  complete  the  rev 
elation  of  the  general  truth  which  is 
made  through  it. 

This  law  not  only  governs  in  the 
world  of  art,  but  also  in  the  world  of 
mind  and  character.  Original,  crea 
tive  persons  do  not  attain  power  and 
influence  by  the  method  of  aggrega 
tion,  by  adding  knowledge  to  knowl 
edge  ;  they  attain  full  self-unfolding 
by  developing  what  is  germinal  with- 


200 


Vital  Selection. 

in  them  along  natural  lines ;  they 
grow  by  the  expansion  which  comes 
from  appropriating  that  which  vitally 
relates  itself  to  them.  The  vocabu 
lary  of  such  persons  is  not  made  up 
of  generalized  words ;  it  is  in  the 
highest  degree  specialized ;  it  is  so 
completely  individualized  that  the 
stamp  of  ownership  is  visibleon  every 
sentence.  The  words  are  grasped 
close  to  the  roots,  where  they  are 
most  succulent  and  fresh.  This  is 
the  secret  of  picturesque,  vivid,  first 
hand  style;  which  is  never  compos 
ite  or  derivative,  but  always  simple, 
immediate,  and  intensely  personal. 
It  is  the  peculiar  peril  of  this  age  that 
there  are  so  many  things  to  obscure 
the  working  of  this  law.  The  oppor 
tunities  of  study  and  travel  are  so 
great  that  the  age  tends  to  a  fascin 
ating  but  unproductive  eclecticism  in 

2OI 


Vital  Selection. 

education,  philosophy,  and  religion, 
rather  than  to  a  high  and  fertile  orig 
inality.  Active  minds,  full  of  curi 
osity  and  eager  to  explore  the  round 
world  in  quest  of  the  new,  the  fresh, 
and  the  unknown,  waste  and  debili 
tate  themselves  by  endeavoring  to 
take  into  themselves  that  which  is  not 
related  to  them  and  which  they  can 
not  assimilate.  They  add  to  their 
knowledge,  but  they  do  not  add  to 
their  power.  Their  minds  are  like 
many  houses  into  which  one  goes,  at 
this  end  of  the  century,  which  are 
furnished  from  the  scourings  of  the 
globe,  but  are  without  harmony  or 
individuality  of  taste,  order,  or  orna 
ment;  private  museums,  filled  with 
fragments  and  survivals  of  civiliza 
tions,  odds  and  ends  of  the  centu 
ries.  This,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
is  not  home-making  ;  it  is  not  the 

202 


Vital  Selection. 

fruit  of  the  art  spirit ;  it  is  simply 
collecting,  which  is  a  very  different 
matter. 

The  universal  range  of  the  mind, 
without  definite  aim,  indiscriminate, 
omnivorous,  excited,  does  not  secure 
education,  freedom,  power,  or  origi 
nality.  It  is  a  vicious  method ;  it 
results  in  a  derivative  instead  of  a 
creative  life  of  the  mind,  and  it  in 
volves  a  slow  decay  of  individuality. 
Men  and  women  who  fall  victims  to 
this  temptation  to  waste  their  force 
over  a  wide  field  instead  of  intensi 
fying  it  by  concentration,  become  at 
last  vague  generalizations  of  the  vital 
principle  rather  than  clear,  powerful, 
and  commanding  types.  In  their 
endeavor  to  grasp  all,  they  forget 
that  truth  comes  not  by  searching, 
but  by  growing ;  that  it  cannot  be 
gathered  here  and  there  by  the  tour- 
203 


Vital  Selection. 

ist,  but  must  be  patiently  absorbed 
and   assimilated. 

The  capacity  for  truth  is  exactly 
measured  by  the  capacity  to  incorpor 
ate  it  into  character.  Beyond  the 
limits  of  that  capacity  it  is  impos 
sible  to  go,  strive  and  struggle  as 
we  may.  We  can  only  take  in  that 
knov/ledge  which  is  vitally  related 
to  us.  We  may  go  on  indefinitely 
adding  facts,  knowledge,  ideas  which 
are  not  related  to  us,  but  we  are 
neither  enriched  by  them  nor  can  we 
command  them.  They  do  not  be 
long  to  us  ;  they  often  encumber 
and  smother  us.  In  electing  to  be 
original  and  creative,  to  make  any 
real  contribution  to  life,  or  to  secure 
the  fullest  development  which  life 
affords,  one  must  elect  to  pass  by  a 
great  deal  of  knowledge  because  it  is 
impossible  to  absorb  it.  The  tree, 
204 


Vital  Selection. 

which  lives  by  an  infallible  instinct, 
if  such  a  phrase  is  permissible,  takes 
out  of  the  soil  and  the  atmosphere 
those  things  which  feed  it,  in  quanti 
ties  which  it  can  absorb.  In  like 
manner  a  human  soul  can  take  out 
of  life  only  those  elements  which  be 
long  to  it  by  reason  of  affinity  with 
its  type.  It  must  leave  other  ele 
ments  alone ;  they  belong  to  other 
types  of  mind  and  character.  One 
may  be  either  an  Oriental  or  an  Occi 
dental,  but  one  cannot  be  both  with 
out  a  confusion  of  fundamental  ideas 
which  goes  to  the  very  bottom  of 
one's  nature  ;  and  yet  this  is  pre 
cisely  what  a  great  many  people  are 
trying  to  be  to-day.  If  one  wishes 
to  have  a  complete  and  rounded 
personality  and  to  avoid  being  a  het 
erogeneous  collection  of  unrelated  and 
inharmonious  parts,  one  must  under- 
205 


Vital  Selection. 

stand  his  own  type  and  appropriate 
those  things  which  are  vitally  related 
to  it.  The  artist,  the  man  who 
strives  after  perfection,  is  revealed,  as 
Schiller  says,  quite  as  much  by  what 
he  discards  as  by  what  he  accepts. 
Rejection  is  quite  as  important  as 
selection,  in  a  fully  developed  and 
productive  life. 


206 


Chapter  XX. 

Repose. 

/T"VHE  process  of  growth,  with  the 
evidences  of  which  the  world 
overflows,  is  as  mysterious  as  the 
vital  principle  behind  it.  We  can 
lay  our  hands  on  all  sides  on  its 
results  ;  but  we  never  actually  see 
it.  We  cannot  accurately  mark  its 
stages,  nor  can  we  exactly  measure  it 
by  time  duration ;  we  can  say  of  it, 
however,  that  it  is  the  unfolding 
of  that  which  lies  in  the  germ  by 
the  appropriation  of  those  elements 
which  assimilate  with  it.  There  is 
one  quality  which  everywhere  char 
acterizes  it,  —  the  quality  of  repose. 
207 


Repose. 

The  living  thing  that  grows,  what 
ever  its  form5  surrenders  itself  en 
tirely  to  the  process.  It  does  not 
vacillate  between  different  aims ;  it 
is  in  no  uncertainty  as  to  its  type ; 
it  makes  no  experiments  in  the  choice 
of  the  elements  upon  which  it  is  to 
draw  sustenance.  By  the  law  under 
which  it  lives  it  selects  the  things 
which  it  needs,  and  opens  itself  to 
their  reception.  It  is  always  expand 
ing,  and  it  is  always  in  repose.  Deep 
and  genuine  growth  is  conditioned  on 
repose ;  for  repose  implies  neither 
sluggishness  nor  inactivity ;  it  means 
quietness  and  calmness  at  the  centre 
of  activity.  Emerson  long  ago  noted, 
as  others  had  noted  before  him,  that 
the  Greek  heroes,  no  matter  how 
strenuously  engaged,  are  always  in 
repose.  In  this  attitude,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  these  typical  figures 
208 


Repose. 

are  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of 
Greek  art ;  an  art  which  was  close 
to  Nature,  and  which  is  still,  in 
many  of  its  aspects,  the  most  com 
plete  expression  and  interpretation 
of  Nature. 

This  quality  of  repose  which  lies 
in  the  very  heart  of  Greek  art  is 
an  evidence  of  the  profound  artistic 
instinct  of  the  Greek  race.  It  was 
the  peculiar  gift,  not  of  a  sluggish, 
but  of  an  intensely  alert  and  active 
people.  It  was,  therefore,  a  positive, 
not  a  negative,  quality ;  something 
essential  to  the  very  nature  of  their 
art.  And  the  more  closely  we  study 
that  art  the  clearer  and  more  pro 
found  becomes  its  significance.  Re 
pose  is  part  of  its  perfection ;  in  a 
sense,  the  very  soul  of  it.  For  it 
was  born  of  a  clear  perception  of 
ends ;  a  clear  adjustment  and  meas- 
14  209 


Repose. 

urement  of  means ;  complete  accord 
between  the  worker  and  his  work. 
There  are  no  signs  of  agitation,  rest 
lessness,  nervousness,  or  uncertainty 
in  the  Greek  plays,  the  Greek  statues, 
or  the  Greek  buildings.  There  is 
deep  thought ;  there  is  definite  con 
viction  ;  there  is  profound  feeling ; 
there  are  evidences  of  tireless  work : 
but  all  these  diverse  elements  and 
forces  are  subjected  so  completely 
in  the  artist's  mastery  of  his  mate 
rials  that  they  are  held  in  the  poise 
of  final  repose.  The  repose  is  the 
more  significant  because  this  art,  of 
all  the  art  men  have  created,  was  the 
most  natural  and  spontaneous.  It 
was  the  direct  fruit  of  the  life  behind 
it ;  the  natural  expression  of  the 
race  which  fashioned  it.  Repose 
is  the  key  to  the  universality  of 
Greek  art  and  to  the  perfection  of 

210 


Repose. 

the  types  which  it  produced.  It 
separates  that  art  at  once  and  forever 
from  the  art  of  the  moment,  and 
from  the  art  of  the  provinces.  It 
owes  its  supremacy  to  the  qualities 
which  are  fused  together  in  the  re 
pose  which  lies  at  its  heart. 

There  is  nothing  more  impressive 
as  an  exhibition  of  power  than  the 
expansion  of  a  great  tree,  and  its 
power  of  resisting  the  storms  and 
winds ;  but  that  process  is  soundless. 
Eternal  quiet  seems  to  brood  in  the 
shadow  of  this  miracle  of  strength 
and  silence.  The  depth  and  range 
of  the  growth  of  the  human  spirit 
are  conditioned  on  a  kindred  repose. 
Man  must  really  rest  in  Nature  if  he 
is  to  be  fed.  It  is  true,  there  must 
come,  in  every  life,  crises  of  emotion, 
thought,  and  action,  but  these  crises 
are  exceptional ;  they  are  not  normal 


211 


Repose. 

conditions.  They  are  transitional, 
not  permanent.  One  passes  through 
them,  if  he  learns  what  they  have 
to  give,  into  a  deeper  repose;  for 
repose,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  adjust 
ment  to  the  conditions  of  life,  sound 
and  true  relations  with  the  things 
which  surround  us.  It  is,  therefore, 
not  a  matter  of  temperament;  it  is 
the  fundamental  condition  in  all  free 
and  harmonious  growth.  The  man 
who  is  in  haste  is  always  out  of  rela 
tion  to  things ;  he  has  forgotten 
something,  he  has  not  given  himself 
time  enough  to  accomplish  the  work 
he  has  in  hand,  or  he  has  undertaken 
more  than  he  can  execute.  His  haste 
implies  maladjustment ;  it  means  that 
he  has  blundered,  or  that  he  is  inade 
quate  to  the  task  he  has  assumed. 
If  a  man  has  secured  a  true  adjust 
ment  to  his  conditions  and  opportu- 

212 


Repose. 

nities  and  holds  right  relations  to  his 
world,  he  may  bear  great  burdens  and 
carry  on  vast  activities  without  agita 
tion  or  restlessness.  The  man  of 
most  heroic  labor  is  often  the  man  of 
calmest  manner  and  voice  ;  while  the 
man  in  whom  haste  is  so  evident  that 
his  very  presence  wearies  and  irritates 
is  generally  superficial  and  ineffective. 
Mastery  is  attained  by  those  only 
who  keep  their  minds  in  quietness. 
The  vaster  the  responsibilities  and 
the  more  intense  the  activities,  the 
deeper  the  need  of  perfect  poise. 
Napoleon  was  never  so  cool  as  in 
those  critical  moments  when  the 
issue  of  the  battle  hung  in  the  bal 
ance.  A  lyric  may  be  written  in 
the  exaltation  of  great  excitement, 
but  the  writing  of  a  Divine  Comedy 
necessitates  a  repose  so  deep  and  en 
during  that  the  agitations  and  anguish 
213 


Repose. 

of  life  are,  by  its  very  vastness, 
robbed  of  their  terror.  Haste  is 
fatal  to  noble  work ;  agitation  de 
stroys  the  possibility  of  permanent 
achievement.  The  travellers  who 
really  see  and  are  able  to  give  intel 
ligent  reports  of  the  countries  through 
which  they  pass  are  not  those  who, 
by  the  rapidity  of  their  movement, 
envelop  themselves  in  clouds  of 
dust ;  the  men  and  women  who  dis 
cern  with  level  vision  the  real  con 
ditions  in  society  do  not,  by  the 
violence  of  their  emotions,  surround 
themselves  by  blinding  storms.  Rich 
natures  have  all  the  elements  of  pas 
sion,  imagination,  and  emotion  which 
shake  the  earth  and  blot  out  the 
heavens  ;  but  natures  which  translate 
such  possibilities  into  character  and 
achievement  hold  these  elemental 
forces  in  absolute  control.  Art  is, 
214 


Repose. 

by  its  very  nature,  in  eternal  antag 
onism  with  haste,  agitation,  restless 
ness,  or  violence. 

In  the  stimulating  air  of  this  con 
tinent  this  lesson  of  calmness  and 
repose  is  sorely  needed.  A  vast 
amount  of  our  energy  goes  out  in 
sterile  activity.  We  rush  from  one 
kind  of  knowledge  to  another,  eager, 
breathless,  and  excited,  and  forget 
that  culture  —  the  real  mastery  of 
knowledge  —  is  not  a  fruit  to  be 
plucked  by  a  quick  motion,  but  a 
fertility  which  follows  the  silent  fall 
ing  of  the  rain  and  the  slow  enrich 
ment  of  the  invisible  soil.  Abnormal 
nervous  excitability  is  often  confused 
in  this  country  with  intellectual  activ 
ity  ;  nerves  are  mistaken  for  brains, 
and  the  restlessness  of  the  one  for 
the  productivity  of  the  other.  Nerves 
are  of  immense  importance,  but  they 
215 


Repose. 

are  distinctly  non-creative.  They 
have  never  developed  a  great  thought, 
nor  given  even  a  passing  inspiration 
to  art.  Many  Americans  move  from 
point  to  point,  from  interest  to  inter 
est,  so  constantly  that  they  live  in  a 
cloud  of  dust,  which  overhangs  the 
highway  and  hides  the  heavens.  We 
trample  the  earth  until  it  becomes 
hard  under  our  feet  instead  of  per 
mitting  it  to  become  rich  and  fertile. 
We  rusk  headlong  over  delicate 
growths,  instead  of  tenderly  and 
piously  fostering  them. 

Riding  one  day  over  the  plains  at 
the  end  of  a  long  detachment  of  men, 
General  Custer  made  a  sudden  change 
of  direction  at  the  head  of  the  column. 
As  the  men  reached  a  certain  point 
they  rode  off  to  the  right,  rank  after 
rank,  as  if  an  invisible  hand  had  smit 
ten  them  out  of  their  course.  The 
216 


Repose. 

curiosity  of  those  at  the  rear  of  the 
line  was  excited,  and  as  they  ap 
proached  the  point  they  looked  care- 
fally  to  see  what  had  caused  the 
change  of  direction,  and  they  found 
in  the  desert  a  bird's  nest  full  of  tiny 
eggs.  A  long  detachment  of  men 
had  turned  aside  rather  than  crush 
that  bit  of  life  in  the  universal  aridity  ! 
There  is  a  parable  in  that  incident 
which  Americans  would  do  well  to 
study. 

A  man  must  have  quiet  and  soli 
tude  in  order  to  find  himself,  —  one 
of  the  great  ends  of  human  seeking. 
There  are  many  who  find  knowledge 
but  do  not  find  themselves,  and  their 
knowledge  remains,  therefore,  unpro 
ductive.  No  man  can  go  home  to 
himself  until  he  has  separated  him 
self  from  the  crowd.  We  cannot  be 
fed  either  by  Nature  or  experience 
217 


Repose. 

until  we  are  open  to  receive  delicate 
and  elusive  impressions  ;  and  a  rest 
less  nature  is  not  sensitive  to  impres 
sions.  It  throws  them  off  because 
it  is  too  much  preoccupied  and  per 
turbed.  The  greatest  literary  artist 
we  have  yet  produced  on  this  conti 
nent  passed  nearly  twelve  years  in 
entire  obscurity.  Those  years  of 
repose  and  silence  guarded  and  nour 
ished  a  genius  of  singular  delicacy  and 
purity,  and  permitted  its  possessor  to 
sink  the  roots  of  his  thought  deep 
into  the  historic  soil  beneath  him,  to 
saturate  himself  with  the  life  behind 
him,  to  learn  by  a  thousand  contacts 
through  his  imagination  the  subtle 
forms  of  human  experience  which  he 
was  to  interpret  with  a  power  so 
finely  trained  for  its  task.  They 
made  possible  also  the  full  develop 
ment  of  that  marvellous  style  which 
218 


Repose. 

so  perfectly  combines  beauty  and  flex 
ibility  with  sensitiveness  to  receive 
and  power  to  convey  the  most  com 
plex  and  elusive  impressions.  It  is 
impossible  to  imagine  the  genius  of 
Hawthorne  repining  in  restlessness 
and  agitation.  The  solitude  and 
isolation  which,  like  a  calyx,  pro 
tected  the  growth  of  his  genius  were 
favorable  to,  but  were  not  essential 
to,  repose  of  spirit.  One  may  secure 
and  preserve  that  repose  in  the  tur 
bulence  of  a  great  city,  —  as  Shaks- 
peare  surely  found  and  preserved 
it  in  the  London  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  For  repose  does  not  de 
pend  on  external  conditions ;  it 
depends  on  sound  adjustment  to 
tasks,  opportunities,  pleasures,  and 
the  general  order  of  life. 


219 


Chapter   XXI. 

The  Universal  Life. 

every  height/'  says  Goethe, 
"  there  lies  repose.'*  Mere 
altitude,  by  effacing  the  limits  and 
boundaries  which  shut  in  the  view  on 
every  side,  calms  the  spirit  and  stead 
ies  the  nerves.  The  sense  of  pres 
sure,  of  limitation,  so  constant  and 
often  so  oppressive  in  the  routine 
of  ordinary  life,  vanishes,  and  then 
comes  in  its  place  a  sudden  exhilara 
tion.  For  there  is  something  liber 
ating  in  the  mere  physical  range  of 
a  great  view  ;  it  not  only  relieves 
the  eyes  from  the  presence  of  things 
which  limit  the  vision,  but  it  conveys 

220 


The  Universal  Life. 

the  impression  of  universality.  The 
fields  merge  into  the  landscape,  the 
counties  become  states,  and  states 
are  lost  in  the  vast  expanse  of  the 
continent.  From  some  of  the  higher 
Alps  one  looks  down,  not  on  Swit 
zerland  or  France,  but  on  Europe  ; 
from  the  summits  of  the  Rockies 
one  sees,  north  and  south,  the  sub 
lime  range  of  hills  which  binds  half 
the  western  hemisphere  into  one. 

Every  mountain  summit  suggests 
to  the  imagination  that  totality  of 
life  of  which  the  individual  life  is 
part.  The  county  has  its  own  au 
tonomy,  but  it  is  a  feeble  political 
entity  compared  with  the  more  in 
clusive  authority  of  the  state ;  the 
state,  however  powerful,  is  but  a  sub 
division  of  the  Republic;  and  the 
Republic,  in  turn,  but  one  member 
of  a  great  group  of  nations.  Every 


221 


The  Universal  Life. 

political  entity  has  its  own  independ 
ent  life,  but  the  depth  and  power  of 
that  life  depend  quite  as  much  on 
the  closeness  of  its  contact  with  civ 
ilization  as  on  the  nourishment 
which  it  draws  through  its  roots  from 
its  own  soil  ;  for  the  germ  cannot 
secure  complete  expansion  unless 
it  is  fed  on  all  sides  by  substances 
which  it  can  assimilate  because  they 
are  harmonious  with  it.  The  meas 
ure  of  savagery  is  the  isolation  of  the 
tribe ;  the  measure  of  civilization  is 
the  variety,  the  number,  and  the  close 
ness  of  the  contacts  of  a  people  with 
the  world  at  large.  In  like  manner, 
the  individual  life  must  hold  individ 
uality  and  universality  in  right  and 
sound  relations  ;  it  must  have  its 
depth  of  root,  but  it  must  also  have 
its  breadth  of  interest,  knowledge,  and 
relationship.  The  totality  of  things 

222 


The  Universal  Life. 

is  involved  in  every  minutest  mani 
festation  of  life,  as  perfection  of  de 
tail  is  involved  in  the  splendor  and 
completeness  of  the  whole.  The 
endless  profusion  of  exquisite  forms 
which  the  ferns,  strewn  with  a  lavish 
hand  in  the  depths  of  the  woods, 
take  on  implies  the  inexpressible 
beauty  of  the  universe;  while  the 
majesty  of  systems  sweeping  through 
space  hint  at  the  loveliness  of  the  wild- 
flower  hidden  beside  the  rock  in  the 
wildest  and  most  inaccessible  wood 
of  the  smallest  world  in  all  the  shin 
ing  company.  To  keep  ourselves 
in  constant  touch  with  the  totality 
of  things  is,  therefore,  a  primary  law 
of  sound  living.  It  is  the  whole 
globe  which  ultimately  sustains  the 
growing  tree,  not  the  bit  of  soil  on 
which  it  stands  ;  it  is  the  entire  vital 
izing  power  of  the  sun  which  touches 
223 


The  Universal  Life. 

and  vivifies  it,  not  a  group  of  de 
tached  rays.  There  are  no  boun 
dary  lines  in  Nature.  It  is  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  her  where  France  ends 
and  Spain  begins,  where  Europe 
touches  her  eastern  limits  and  Asia 
erects  her  western  gates.  In  Nature 
all  things  are  held  in  indissoluble 
union ;  nothing  is  isolated  or  de 
tached  :  for  isolation  and  detachment 
in  the  physical  order  mean  death. 
In  every  part  the  whole  is  implied, 
and  every  detail  of  creative  structure 
or  life  affirms  the  unity  and  solidarity 
of  the  universe. 

In  this,  as  in  every  other  sphere 
of  choice,  decision,  and  action,  com 
plete  living  lies  in  harmonizing  two 
apparently  antagonistic  tendencies. 
That  antagonism  is,  however,  more 
apparent  than  real.  In  the  perfec 
tion  of  the  fern  lies  the  promise  of 
224 


The  Universal  Life. 

the  perfection  of  the  universe  ;  in  the 
perfection  of  the  individual  type  lies 
the  promise  of  the  perfection  of 
humanity  ;  in  the  denniteness  with 
which  the  particular  idea  is  realized 
lies  the  clearness  with  which  the  gen 
eral  idea  is  revealed.  In  the  arts 
the  universal  ideas  cannot  be  ex 
pressed,  or  even  hinted  at,  save  by 
means  of  persons,  forms,  and  sym 
bols  of  the  most  sharply  defined  char 
acter.  Every  work  of  art  approaches 
perfection  in  the  degree  in  which  it 
is  concrete  and  definite  ;  the  more 
limited  the  form  the  more  clear  the 
disclosure  of  the  universal  idea. 
The  earlier  sculptors  endeavored  to 
express  universal  ideas  by  vast, 
confused,  and  often  incongruous 
symbols,  and  failed  ;  The  Greeks  ob 
tained  absolute  clearness  and  perfec 
tion  of  harmonious,  sharply  defined, 
15  225 


The  Universal  Life. 

and  concrete  illustration,  and  suc 
ceeded  where  their  predecessors  had 
attained  only  a  blurred  confusion  of 
impressions.  In  the  drama  this  law 
is  strikingly  and  constantly  disclosed, 
on  the  one  hand,  in  the  inability  of 
vague  and  indefinite  characters  or 
action  to  reveal  general  truths,  and, 
on  the  other,  by  the  swiftness  and 
certainty  with  which  the  mind  is  car 
ried  beyond  clearly  drawn  persons  to 
the  laws  of  life  or  the  universal  sig 
nificance  of  certain  typical  character 
istics.  In  fiction  also  one  finds  the 
most  interesting  and  impressive  illus 
tration  of  this  fundamental  law  of  ex 
pression.  Such  characters  as  Becky 
Sharp  and  Colonel  Newcome,  as  Pere 
Goriot  and  Eugenie  Grandet,  as 
Annie  Karenina  and  Sonia,  as 
Madame  Bovary  and  Effie  Deans, 
are  as  clearly  realized  in  our  thought 
226 


The  Universal  Life. 

as  the  persons  whose  hands  we  grasp 
and  with  whom  we  have  daily  speech, 
—  and  yet  each  one  is  a  principle  of 
life  incarnate ;  each  one  is  so  iden 
tified  with  a  general  truth  that  the 
character  and  truth  are  really  identi 
cal  in  our  thought.  It  is,  in  a  word, 
through  the  perfection  of  individual 
ity  that  universality  becomes  clear. 

This  perfection  depends,  however, 
in  no  small  degree,  on  a  well-devel 
oped  and  trained  consciousness  of  con 
stant  contact  with  the  totality  of  things. 
One  never  really  knows  his  own 
country  until  he  knows  the  world  ; 
one  never  really  knows  himself  until 
he  knows  humanity.  The  sense  of 
being  part  of  the  great  order  of 
things,  of  being  vitally  related  to  the 
whole  race,  of  being  involved  in  a 
world-wide  historical  movement, 
brings  with  it  a  quieting  and  calming 
227 


The  Universal  Life. 

influence.  Individual  sorrow,  suf 
fering,  and  limitation  lose  the  exag 
gerated  importance  with  which  our 
feelings  invest  them  when  we  recog 
nize  the  range  and  depth  of  the  move 
ment  of  universal  life.  One  may 
become  excited  when  he  looks  exclu 
sively  at  the  affairs  of  his  own  neigh 
borhood,  but  a  glimpse  of  the 
universe  makes  that  excitement  ap 
pear  unreal  and  ridiculous.  The 
sense  of  proportion  is  freshened  by 
the  consciousness  of  relation  to  the 
totality  of  things,  and  the  sense  of 
proportion  is  one  of  the  signs  of 
sanity. 

The  sense  of  exhilaration  which 
fills  the  soul  when  one  slips  out  of 
the  individual  into  the  universal 
mood  in  some  hour  of  mountain 
climbing,  in  some  fortunate  day  on 
the  summits,  was  often  felt  by 
228 


The  Universal  Life. 

Amiel  even  in  his  despondency.  "A 
marvellous  day,"  he  writes  in  July, 
1870.  "The  panorama  before  me 
is  of  grandiose  splendour;  it  is  a 
symphony  of  mountains,  a  cantata  of 
sunny  Alps.  .  .  .  The  feeling  upper 
most  is  one  of  delight  in  being  able 
to  admire  ;  of  joy,  that  is  to  say,  in  a 
recovered  power  of  contemplation 
which  is  the  result  of  physical  relief, 
in  being  able  at  last  to  forget  myself 
and  surrender  myself  to  things,  as 
befits  a  man  in  my  state  of  health. 
Gratitude  is  mingled  with  enthusi 
asm.  I  have  just  spent  two  hours 
at  the  foot  of  the  Sparrenhorn,  the 
peak  behind  us.  A  flood  of  sensa 
tions  overpowered  me.  I  could  only 
look  ;  feel,  dream,  and  think."  Five 
years  earlier,  in  the  same  mood,  he 
wrote :  C{  I  have  not  yet  felt  the  air 
so  pure,  so  life-giving,  so  etherial, 
229 


The  Universal  Life. 

during  the  five  days  I  have  been 
here.  To  breathe  is  a  beatitude. 
One  understands  the  delights  of  a 
bird's  existence,  —  that  emancipation 
from  all  encumbering  weight,  —  that 
luminous  and  empyrean  life,  floating 
in  blue  space,  and  passing  from  one 
horizon  to  another  with  a  stroke  of 
the  wing.  One  must  have  a  great 
deal  of  air  below  one  before  one  can 
be  conscious  of  such  inner  freedom 
as  this,  such  lightness  of  the  whole 
being.  Every  element  has  its  poetry, 
but  the  poetry  of  air  is  liberty." 


230 


Chapter  XXII. 

The  Unconscious  Life. 

pERHAPS  the  greatest  refresh 
ment  which  men  gain  from 
Nature  at  this  end  of  the  century- 
flows  from  the  unconsciousness  in 
which  her  forces  are  put  forth 
and  her  processes  carried  on.  The 
unconsciousness  of  childhood,  says 
Froebel,  is  rest  in  God,  —  a  deep 
saying,  which  goes  far  to  explain 
a  great  deal  of  current  scepticism 
and  pessimism.  For  nothing  breeds 
doubt  and  despair  so  quickly  as  a 
constant  and  feverish  self-conscious 
ness,  with  inability  to  look  at  life 
and  the  world  apart  from  our  own  in- 
231 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

terests,  emotions,  and  temperament. 
This  is,  in  an  exceptional  degree, 
an  epoch  of  morbid  egoism,  of 
exaggerated  and  excessive  self-con 
sciousness;  an  egoism  which  does 
not  always  breed  vanity,  but  which 
confirms  the  tendency  to  measure 
everything  by  its  value  to  us,  and  to 
decide  every  question  on  the  basis  of 
our  personal  relation  to  it.  It  is 
always  unwise  to  generalize  too 
broadly  and  freely  about  contempor 
ary  conditions,  but  there  are  many 
facts  to  bear  out  the  statement  that 
at  no  previous  period  in  the  history 
of  the  world  have  so  many  men  and 
women  been  keenly  and  painfully 
self-conscious  ;  never  a  time  when  it 
has  been  so  difficult  to  look  at  things 
broadly  and  objectively,  to  see  things 
as  they  are  with  entire  sanity  of  soul 
and  clearness  of  vision.  All  the  arts 
232 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

are  saturated  with  morbid  self-con 
sciousness  ;  in  literature  especially, 
sane,  wholesome,  and  real  books  in 
certain  departments  have  become 
exceptional.  Pathology  has  usurped 
the  place  of  art,  and  the  artist  has 
become  a  specialist  in  diseases  of  the 
nerves.  Every  morbid  nature  rushes 
into  print,  until  the  weary  reader  of 
current  fiction  is  tempted  to  think 
that  the  making  of  a  modern  novel 
involves  nothing  more  unusual  in 
the  way  of  gifts  than  a  diseased  mind, 
a  bottle  of  ink,  a  few  reams  of  paper, 
and  a  friendly  or  speculative  pub 
lisher.  Introspective  meditation, 
egotistical  personal  records,  crude 
yearnings,  immature  ambitions,  sickly 
emotions,  unwholesome  or  prema 
ture  passions,  are  spread  out  before 
the  world  with  a  fulness  of  detail  of 
which  only  the  wholesome  and  eter- 
233 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

nal  verities  of  character  and  experi 
ence  are  worthy.  Poor  human 
nature,  as  illustrated  in  some  modern 
fiction  and  verse,  seems  to  have  gone 
mad  with  the  passion  for  publicity, 
and  stands  naked  in  the  public 
squares,  content  with  any  shame  if 
only  people  will  look  at  it.  The  hos 
pital  and  the  dissecting-room  have 
become  places  of  habitual  resort,  and 
every  morning  this  humanity  of  ours, 
whose  diseases  we  used  to  shield  from 
public  gaze,  is  laid  out  on  the  operat 
ing  table  while  the  surgeon  cuts  down 
to  the  last  quivering  nerve  for  our  en 
tertainment.  It  seems  at  times  as  if 
fiction  had  become  a  vast  clinic,  with 
out  the  hush  and  awe  with  which 
human  suffering  has  always  been  wit 
nessed  by  the  pure-minded.  Morbid 
curiosity  has  bred  an  irreverence 
which  violates  the  innermost  sanctity 
234 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

of  the  human  soul.  How  far  this 
attitude  is  from  that  of  a  really  de 
vout  and  noble  nature!  "  We  are 
struck  by  something  bewildering  and 
ineffable  when  we  look  down  into  the 
depths  of  an  abyss/'  writes  Amiel ; 
£C  and  every  soul  is  an  abyss,  a  mystery 
of  love  and  pity.  A  sort  of  sacred 
emotion  descends  upon  me  whenever 
I  penetrate  the  recesses  of  this  sanc 
tuary  of  man,  and  hear  the  gentle 
murmur  of  the  prayers,  hymns,  and 
supplications  which  rise  from  the 
hidden  depths  of  the  heart."  We 
have  become  so  egoistic  that  we 
would  rather  show  our  deformities 
than  be  passed  without  notice. 

From  this  heated  atmosphere  and 
from  these  representations  of  disease, 
put  forth  as  reproductions  of  normal 
life,  we  fly  to  Nature,  and  are  led 
away  from  all  thought  of  ourselves. 
235 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

We  escape  out  of  individual  into 
universal  life  ;  we  bathe  in  the  heal 
ing  waters  of  an  illimitable  ocean  of 
vitality;  we  come  into  contact  with  a 
mighty  organism  which  continually 
receives  and  as  constantly  gives  out, 
in  perfect  unconsciousness  of  its 
functions.  In  health  we  hardly  know 
that  we  have  bodies  ;  we  breathe, 
move,  and  live  without  taking 
thought.  Pain  is  physical  self-con 
sciousness,  and  when  self-conscious 
ness  becomes  a  positive  element  in 
our  lives  it  is  an  evidence  of  disease. 
A  perfectly  sane  nature,  perfectly  ad 
justed  to  its  time,  its  task,  and  its 
fellows,  and  expressing  itself  nor 
mally  through  normal  activities,  is 
free  from  abnormal  self-conscious 
ness,  and  therefore  free  to  pour  all 
its  power  into  objective  and  creative 
work.  For  nothing  limits  normal 
236 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

growth  and  expression  so  inevitably 
as  consciousness  of  self.  In  the  dif 
fusion  of  this  morbid  consciousness 
lies  the  explanation  of  the  obvious 
limitation  of  so  much  genius,  talent, 
and  beauty  which  ought  to  have  been 
large  and  free  and  sane.  The  talent 
of  men  like  Leopardi  and  Verlaine 
commands  the  most  generous  recog 
nition  ;  but  it  is  sheer  blindness  to 
accept  such  men  as  authoritative  in 
terpreters  of  life.  Both  were  dis 
eased  ;  neither  was  sane  in  the  real 
sense  of  the  word,  and  neither  saw 
life  as  it  is,  any  more  than  the  man 
in  a  fever,  looking  through  the  hos 
pital  window,  sees  Nature  as  she  is. 
Byron,  with  the  most  powerful  and 
spontaneous  lyrical  gift  which  has 
appeared  in  English  literature  since 
the  days  of  the  Elizabethans,  could 
not  escape  from  himself,  and,  when 
237 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

he  attempted  to  deal  with  the  prob 
lem  of  personality,  painfully  revealed 
his    incapacity.      Intensely    self-con 
scious,   he  lost  the  power  of  seeing 
and  reflecting  life  broadly  and  simply, 
and  parted  with  that  clearness   and 
breadth    of  vision    with    which    the 
really   great  poet    must   supplement 
the  gift  of  song.     Such  a  man,   on 
the  other  hand,  as  we  have  reason  to 
believe    Shakspeare    to     have    been, 
presents    the    entire    surface    of  his 
mind  to  the  world  unvexed  by  a  mor 
bid    sense    of  self,   and   reflects    the 
whole   order    of  things,   as   the  still 
surface  of  the  water  gathers  into  it 
self  the  landscape  and  the  sky.     If 
for  a  single  generation  we  could  lose 
our  abnormal  self-consciousness  and 
live  simply,  reverently,  and  actively, 
the  whole  race  would  be  reinvigor- 
ated ;  we  should  see  things  as  they 
238 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

are,  and  not  as  they  appear  in  our 
distorted  vision  ;  for  society  is  full 
of  sick  people  who  see  themselves 
more  distinctly  than  they  see  any 
thing  else,  and  we  have  been  taking 
our  reports  and  interpretations  of  life 
largely  from  sick  men  and  women, 
forgetful  of  the  fact  that,  however 
interesting  such  reports  may  be,  and 
however  artistic  in  form,  as  revela 
tions  and  records  they  are  absolutely 
worthless.  The  sane  mind  is  the 
only  mind  that  can  authoritatively 
report  or  interpret  the  immense 
diversity  and  range  of  experience 
which  we  call  life,  because  it  is  the 
only  mind  that  can  see  life. 

The  secret  of  productive  living  lies 
in  the  preponderance  of  the  uncon 
scious  over  the  conscious  life ;  for 
we  do  not  really  possess  an  experi 
ence  or  a  truth  until  these  things 
239 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

have  become  so  much  a  part  of  our 
selves  that  we  have  ceased  to  think 
of  them  as  distinct  from  ourselves. 
Feeling,  experience,  conviction,  tra 
dition,  never  find  noble  expression 
in  art  until  they  have  sunk  far  below 
the  conscious  into  the  unconscious 
life  of  a  man  or  a  race;  the  artist  has 
not  gained  complete  freedom  of  ex 
pression  until  he  has  completely  mas 
tered  the  material  in  which  he  works 
and  the  instrument  which  he  em 
ploys.  So  long  as  he  is  hampered 
by  the  consciousness  of  himself  in 
dealing  with  them,  he  falls  short  of 
mastery.  It  is  significant  that  the 
descriptions  of  childhood  are  often 
impressive  and  beautiful  in  books 
which  deal  very  feebly  and  ineffec 
tively  with  the  experiences  of 
maturity.  The  reason  is  obvious. 
Childhood  lies  so  far  back  in  our 
240 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

experience  that  it  has  become  part  of 
ourselves.  We  do  not  reproduce  it 
by  observation  ;  we  do  not  possess  it 
because  we  have  consciously  studied 
it ;  it  possesses  us  because  it  is  part 
of  our  deepest  selves.  It  lies  there, 
as  we  look  back  upon  it,  in  a  light 
at  once  clear  and  soft,  apart  from  our 
self-consciousness;  a  vision  of  that 
which  we  once  were.  Those  moun 
tains  which  so  often  appear  in  Titian's 
pictures  were  the  hills  which  gathered 
about  the  home  of  his  childhood,  and 
became  so  much  a  part  of  his  mem 
ory  that  his  whole  life  seemed  to  be 
lived  at  their  feet.  To  drain  into 
ourselves  the  rivulets  of  power  which 
flow  through  Nature,  art,  and  expe 
rience,  we  must  hold  ourselves  open 
on  all  sides  ;  we  must  empty  our 
selves  of  ourselves  in  order  to  make 
room  for  the  truth  and  power  which 

16  241 


The  Unconscious  Life. 

come  to  us  through  knowledge  and 
action  ;  we  must  lose  our  abnormal 
self-consciousness  in  rich  and  free 
relations  with  the  universal  life 
around  us ;  we  must  turn  our  con 
scious  feeling,  acting,  and  living  into 
unconscious  feeling,  acting,  and  liv 
ing.  For  the  more  a  man  can  learn 
to  do  instinctively  and  uncon 
sciously,  the  more  complete  will  be 
his  emancipation  from  the  drudgery 
of  living,  and  the  more  complete 
his  freedom  to  develop  his  own 
personality. 


242 


Chapter  XXIII. 

Solitude  and  Silence. 


sense  of  freedom  which 
comes  when  one  goes  into  the 
deep  woods  is  something  more  than 
the  satisfaction  of  a  physical  need  ; 
it  is  the  satisfaction  of  a  spiritual 
need,  —  the  need  of  isolation,  detach 
ment,  solitude.  To  the  mind  fatigued 
by  constant  and  rapid  readjustments 
to  different  subjects  and  to  diverse 
tasks,  the  quiet  and  seclusion  of  the 
woods  are  like  a  healing  balm.  The 
pleasure  they  bring  with  them  is  so 
keen  and  so  real  that  it  is  almost 
sensuous.  One  feels  as  if  he  had 
found  himself  after  a  long  period  of 
243 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

wandering;  as  if  he  had  come  to 
himself  after  a  touch  of  delirium. 
The  silence  is  sedative  and  the  soli 
tude  a  tonic ;  relaxation  and  rein- 
vigoration  are  both  at  hand. 

The  instinct  which  impels  us  to 
get  away  from  our  fellows  is  as  nor 
mal  as  that  which  constantly  draws 
us  to  them  ;  we  cannot  really  live 
without  them,  we  cannot  really  live 
with  them  !  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the 
highest  growth  involves  the  harmo 
nization  of  two  apparently  opposing 
conditions,  —  the  condition  of  isola 
tion  and  that  of  association.  These 
are  the  centrifugal  and  the  centripetal 
forces  which,  in  apparent  opposition, 
work  together  for  our  complete  de 
velopment.  The  perfection  of  the 
citizen  —  the  man  in  association  with 
other  men  —  depends  first  of  all  on 
the  perfection  of  the  individuality. 
244  i 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

A  man  must  be  self-centred,  self- 
sustained,  and  complete  in  himself 
before  he  can  carry  any  real  power  or 
character  into  specific  relationships  ; 
a  tree  must  have  independent  root 
age  before  it  can  take  to  itself  the 
elements  of  life  and  growth  about  it. 
No  man  can  give  the  highest  im 
pulses  and  thoughts  to  his  fellows 
until  he  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  inde 
pendent  of  them  ;  the  visions  of  the 
prophet  come  in  the  desert  or  on  the 
lonely  summit  of  the  hill.  His  duty 
is  to  his  fellows  ;  but  much  of  the 
truth  of  which  he  is  the  mouthpiece 
is  revealed  to  him  when  he  is  wrapped 
about  with  silence  and  solitude. 
That  which  is  individual  in  us,  and 
which  makes  us  distinct  and  different 
from  all  other  men,  is  fostered  and  de 
veloped  by  solitude.  In  society  one 
is  constantly  assailed  by  influences, 
245 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

views,  convictions,  temperamental 
attitudes  which  are  alien  and  often 
antagonistic.  One  needs  the  attrition 
of  these  differences  ;  but  one  needs, 
first  of  all,  something  in  himself  which 
resists, — the  power  of  a  developed 
and  self-conscious  individuality. 

In  solitude  a  man  learns  what  is 
in  him ;  he  makes  terms  with  the 
power  about  him ;  he  comes  into 
intelligent  relations  with  the  world 
which  surrounds  him.  Solitude  is 
essential  to  real  thinking,  and  it  is 
only  by  thinking  that  we  arrive  at  a 
knowledge  of  ourselves  and  at  the 
significance  of  experience.  After  a 
day  of  intense  activity,  of  deep  emo 
tion,  of  sudden  or  momentous  hap 
penings,  one  feels  the  necessity  of 
being  alone  in  order  to  get  at  the 
meaning  of  what  has  taken  place. 
The  very  experiences  which  are 
246 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

social  in  their  character  and  which 
come  to  us  only  in  company  with 
our  fellows  are  not  completely  ours 
until  we  have  meditated  upon  them  in 
some  solitary  place.  It  has  often  been 
said  that  a  man  is  never  so  lonely  as 
when  in  a  crowd;  for  in  a  crowd  it 
often  happens  that  a  man  is  not  only 
unacquainted  with  those  who  press 
upon  him  on  every  side,  but  is  also 
separated  from  himself  by  the  confu 
sion,  noise,  and  pressure. 

Individual  gifts  and  qualities  of 
all  kinds  are  fostered  by  silence  and 
solitude.  Talent,  Goethe  tells  us, 
is  developed  in  solitude  ;  but  char 
acter,  in  the  stream  of  the  world. 
Before  the  metal  can  be  tempered 
and  hammered  into  shape,  it  must 
have  individual  quality ;  and  it  is 
this  quality  which  a  man  carries  with 
him  into  the  world.  A  full  life  in- 
247 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

volves  habitual  meditation  ;  a  contin 
ual  play  of  the  mind  on  all  the 
elements  and  events  which  come 
within  the  range  of  vision. 

It  is  significant  that  the  faces  of 
those  who  have  interpreted  life  most 
fruitfully  and  nobly  have  the  medi 
tative  cast ;  they  bear  the  impress  of 
secret  thought.  Men  of  executive 
force  may  dispense  in  a  measure  with 
privacy;  but  men  of  artistic  or  phil 
osophical  genius  must  guard  it  with 
jealo'us  care.  If  they  lose  it,  they 
part  with  something  essential  to  their 
development.  The  happiest  and 
most  productive  years  in  the  life  of 
a  man  of  letters,  or  of  an  artist  in 
any  department,  are  often  the  years  of 
obscurity  ;  the  long,  leisurely  years 
of  silence  and  seclusion,  beautiful 
with  dreams  and  rich  in  the  work 
which  is  play.  When  Fame  comes, 
248 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

the  crowd  comes  with  her,  and 
thenceforth  the  man  must  fight  for 
the  very  life  of  his  gift.  In  nothing 
is  the  public  so  remorseless  as  in  the 
wasting  of  the  time  and  substance  of 
the  man  whom  it  elects  to  crown 
with  popularity.  It  often  destroys 
when  it  means  to  caress ;  it  blights 
and  saps  when  it  means  to  nourish 
and  reward.  Fortunate  is  the  man 
of  artistic  temper  to  whom  fame 
comes  so  late  that  his  habits  are 
formed,  his  aims  fixed,  and  his  tem 
per  become  as  steel  in  its  power  of 
resistance ! 

Every  man  owes  it  to  his  soul  to 
take  time  for  solitude ;  to  make 
place  in  his  life  for  seclusion  and 
silence.  For  the  two  are  bound  to 
gether,  —  one  may  be  lonely  in  an 
uproar,  but  one  can  hardly  find  soli 
tude  under  such  conditions.  In  the 
249 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

woods  the  very  sounds  make  the 
silence  more  evident  and  refreshing. 
The  murmur  of  pines,  the  song  of 
birds,  the  rustle  and  fall  of  leaves,  the 
ripple  of  the  brook,  conspire  to  pre 
serve  the  essential  silence  even  while 
they  seem  to  violate  it.  They  are 
sounds  so  detached  from  the  world 
of  society,  so  free  from  all  association 
with  it,  that  they  deepen  our  feeling 
of  detachment  from  it;  they  do  not 
interrupt  and  disturb  ;  they  soothe 
and  harmonize.  The  quiet  which 
reigns  in  the  woods,  so  delicious  to 
tired  nerves  and  the  spent  mind,  is 
not  the  repose  of  death,  but  the  har 
mony  of  a  fathomless  life  ;  it  sug 
gests,  not  effort  and  distraction,  but 
ease  and  play;  it  is  not  so  much 
absence  of  sound  as  harmony  of 
sound.  Life  in  human  associations 
wearies  us  not  because  it  is  audi- 
250 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

ble,  but  because  it  is  inharmonious  ; 
because  its  sounds  are  not  musical, 
but  discordant.  If  they  were  musical 
they  would  fall  on  our  ears  like  the 
chimes  of  Antwerp,  which  seem  to 
rain  pure  melody  from  the  clouds  ; 
they  would  bring  with  them  peace 
and  rest.  It  is  because  they  are  born 
of  discord  and  of  unnatural  and  un 
wholesome  conditions  that  they  dis 
turb,  irritate,  and  exhaust. 

In  the  woods  the  sounds  are  nor 
mal,  and  they  are,  therefore,  by  con 
trast  with  the  sounds  of  human 
making,  akin  to  silence.  They  rest 
and  refresh  the  nerves  which  dis 
cords  have  irritated  and  disturbed. 
When  the  nervous  self-consciousness 
passes  away  with  the  passing  of  the 
conditions  which  developed  it,  and 
crowds  are  as  remote  as  the  roar  they 
create,  thought  has  a  chance  to  play 

251 


Solitude  and  Silence. 

upon  experience,  to  rationalize  it,  to 
study  opportunities,  to  measure  abil 
ity  with  task,  to  develop  in  one  a 
clear,  wholesome  consciousness  of 
self,  and  to  adjust  one  intelligently  to 
his  environment.  Through  every 
fruitful  life  there  must  run  a  definite 
purpose  and  the  habit  of  meditation  ; 
and  these  are  possible  only  to  the 
man  who  can  separate  himself  from 
his  fellows  and  think  out  his  per 
sonal  problem  quietly,  candidly,  and 
fundamentally.  When  a  man  has 
justly  measured  himself  and  set  him 
self  to  do  the  work  which  he  is 
equipped  to  accomplish,  his  freshness 
and  productivity  will  depend  on  the 
fulness  and  continuity  of  his  medi 
tation  ;  the  silent  dwelling  of  the 
spirit  on  the  deepest  things  of  expe 
rience  and  knowledge. 


252 


Chapter   XXIV. 

Unhasting,  Unresting. 

'  I  ^HE  unbroken  continuity  of  the 
activity  of  Nature  is  both  baf 
fling  and  suggestive.  The  garment 
which  the  world  wears  is  seamless, 
and  therefore  eludes  our  search  for 
the  secrets  of  mechanism  and  manu 
facture.  The  mystery  and  miracle 
of  growth  are  behind  it,  and  are  still, 
after  all  our  appliances  and  observa 
tion,  inexplicable.  Season  succeeds 
season  without  pause,  but  by  grada 
tions  so  gradual  that  we  are  never 
able  to  mark  the  points  of  transition. 
We  can  say  "  It  is  summer  "  or  "  It 
is  autumn ; "  we  are  never  able  to 
say  "  Here  summer  ends,  here  autumn 
253 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

begins."  Invisibly  and  inaudibly  the 
energy  of  life  is  put  forth  in  verdure, 
leaf,  bud,  flower,  and  fruit;  always 
witnessing  its  presence  by  a  thousand 
tokens  and  signs,  but  never  reveal 
ing  the  ways  of  its  coming  or  the 
paths  of  its  going.  The  beautiful 
procession  has  been  moving  across 
the  fields  and  along  the  edges  of  the 
hills  since  time  began ;  blossom  and 
fragrance  have  silently  revealed  its 
presence  ;  waving  banners  of  red  and 
gold  have  floated  against  the  sky  in 
golden  autumnal  days ;  fallen  leaves 
have  whirled  along  the  path  of  its 
receding  splendor ;  it  has  filled  the  eye 
with  moving  images  and  stirred  the 
imagination  with  a  thousand  hints  and 
impulses  :  but  the  secret  of  its  endless 
variety,  its  fadeless  pomp,  the  peren 
nial  freshness  of  its  appeal  through 
the  senses  to  the  soul,  is  inviolate. 
254 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

We  know  that  the  moving  principle 
behind  it  is  vital,  and  that  the  method 
of  its  working  out  and  putting  forth 
is  that  of  growth ;  but  what  life  is  in 
itself  and  how  growth  is  accomplished 
we  do  not  know.  We  have  really 
large  knowledge  of  the  details  of  the 
manifestation  of  this  wonderful  force 
which  streams  through  the  universe, 
but  of  its  nature  we  remain  as  igno 
rant  as  our  fathers  were.  The  com 
monest  flower  of  the  wayside  is  too 
wonderful  for  our  intelligence. 

The  beauty  of  this  spendid  display 
of  the  resources  of  life  in  Nature  lies 
largely  in  the  unbroken  continuity 
with  which  energy  flows  forth  and 
functions  and  ends  are  fulfilled.  The 
work  never  pauses,  and  yet  it  is  never 
obtruded ;  it  is  always  being  accom 
plished  with  incredible  expenditure 
of  force,  and  yet  there  is  never  a  sign 
255 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

of  strain  or  exhaustion.  The  work 
of  the  natural  world  is  not  toil,  but 
play ;  it  is  always  going  forward,  and 
yet  is  absolutely  free  from  haste  and 
fret.  Nature  can  produce  a  finished 
form  in  an  hour,  or  she  can  spend  a 
thousand  years  in  the  performance 
of  a  single  task ;  in  both  cases  she  is 
equally  exact,  thorough,  and  adequate 
in  selection  of  material  and  use  of 
instruments ;  and  she  is  also  equally 
easeful,  leisurely,  and  unhasting.  She 
never  rests  and  she  never  hastens ; 
she  is  always  at  her  task  and  she  is 
always  at  her  ease. 

And  in  no  aspect  of  her  life  is 
Nature  more  suggestive  than  in  this 
fruitful  repose,  this  energetic  quiet 
ness,  this  masterful  ease.  We  fret 
and  worry  and  strain ;  we  toil  and 
groan  and  fall ;  she  goes  calmly  on 
with  her  play  of  forces  and  tools, 
256 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

and  accomplishes  ends  which  not  only 
lie  beyond  our  strength,  but  beyond 
our  comprehension.  The  conditions 
under  which  her  work  is  carried  on 
are  so  different  from  those  under 
which  ours  is  performed  that  we  must 
forbear  to  press  the  analogy  too  far ; 
but  there  remain  certain  resemblances 
which  are  neither  forced  nor  mislead 
ing,  and  from  these  resemblances  there 
flow  certain  teachings  which  are  vitally 
important  in  the  productive  human 
life. 

It  is  significant  that  the  higher  and 
more  enduring  the  form  of  work  is 
the  closer  the  parallelism  between  the 
method  of  Nature  and  the  method  of 
man.  The  most  barren,  unreal,  and 
useless  form  of  human  activity  is  the 
speculative,  —  which  deals  not  with 
actual  values,  but  with  momentary 
impressions  of  values ;  and  there  is 
17  257 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

no  other  occupation  which  engenders 
such  heat,  fever,  strain,  and  excite 
ment.  In  no  other  public  place,  in 
no  other  recognized  occupation,  is 
man  so  undignified,  irrational,  and 
rudimentary  in  expression  and  action 
as  in  a  stock  exchange  on  a  day  of 
rapidly  advancing  or  declining  prices. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  long  line  of 
human  activity  stands  the  artist ;  the 
man  who  deals,  not  with  the  shifting 
estimations  of  things,  but  with  their 
essential  and  enduring  values,  and 
whose  work,  beyond  all  other  forms 
of  work,  is  stamped  by  calmness  and 
the  fortitude  of  a  long  patience. 

When,  in  any  occupation,  a  man 
rises  to  the  dignity  and  power  of  the 
artist,  he  achieves  this  rare  distinction, 
this  supreme  success,  by  conforming 
his  working  habits  to  the  methods  of 
Nature.  His  work  is  full  of  vitality, 

258 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

freshness,  individuality,  by  virtue  of 
the  complete  identification  of  his 
spirit  and  his  methods,  and  of  the 
entire  harmony  which  he  has  reached 
between  his  power  and  his  task.  He 
has  healed  the  schism  which  so  con 
stantly  separates  the  worker  from  his 
work,  and  which  breeds  self-con 
sciousness  and  produces  irritation, 
haste,  and  a  feverish  anxiety.  His 
work  is  not  accomplished  on  material 
outside  of  his  own  nature ;  it  is  ac 
complished  through  himself.  If  he 
is  a  writer  he  constantly  uses  literary 
forms,  but  that  which  he  gives  the 
world  through  the  medium  of  those 
forms  is  a  certain  view  of  things  which 
he  alone  of  all  men  has  taken  or  is 
able  to*  Jake  ;  and  this  view  or  inter 
pretation  of  things  is  put  forth  not  as 
a  thing  distinct  from,  but  a  part  of, 
himself.  If  he  is  an  orator  he  em- 
259 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

ploys  language,  tones,  modulation, 
gesture,  posture,  facial  expressions 
which  may  be  observed  and  described ; 
but  the  charm  of  his  speech  lies  in 
his  personality,  and  it  is  that  person 
ality  which  captivates  his  auditors 
through  all  these  media  of  utterance. 
In  both  these  cases,  and  in  the  case 
of  all  men  who  attain  mastery  in  any 
form  of  activity,  the  real  work  is 
accomplished  within  the  nature  of 
the  man  himself. 

And  this  result  is  not  secured 
by  feverish  intensity,  by  consuming 
haste ;  on  the  contrary,  these  are  the 
things  which  postpone  and  defeat  it. 
The  fruit  in  the  orchard  ripens 
through  long  days  and  quiet  nights ; 
and  the  spirit  of  man  nijf:  ripen 
under  like  conditions.  It  ifmnot  be 
forced ;  agitation  and  haste  keep  it 
immature,  unreceptive,  and  sterile. 
260 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

It  is  enriched  and  made  powerful 
and  productive  by  the  habit  of  un- 
hasting,  unresting  work.  The  man 
who  has  learned  the  secret  of  substi 
tuting  growth  for  toil  and  of  trans 
forming  work  into  play  by  making 
his  work  the  normal  and  intimate 
expression  of  himself,  never  rests 
from  his  occupation.  He  is  always 
at  work.  He  is  in  a  constant  state 
of  preparation,  for  he  is  always  getting 
ready  for  the  specific  task  by  general 
enrichment.  His  hours  of  leisure  are 
often  more  important  than  his  hours 
of  occupation,  —  so  rich  are  they  in 
the  impressions  and  thoughts  he  is 
later  to  employ.  A  day  in  the  woods 
often  plants  the  seeds  of  half  a  dozen 
lyrics  in  a  poet's  soul ;  they  ripen 
slowly  or  swiftly  as  the  conditions 
determine :  but  putting  them  on 
paper,  when  the  fit  moment  comes, 
261 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

is  but  the  last  step  in  a  long  series 
of  stages  each  one  of  which  marks 
the  progression  toward  perfection. 
There  has  been,  in  this  vital  process, 
no  moment  of  haste ;  and  there  has 
been  no  moment  of  rest :  there  has 
been  a  continuous,  almost  unconscious 
growth  of  a  work  of  art  in  the  invis 
ible  workshop  of  the  artist's  soul. 

This  appropriation  of  the  vitaliz 
ing  and  enriching  power  of  all  knowl 
edge,  observation,  and  experience  is 
the  real  work  of  the  master  workmen 
of  the  world ;  the  embodiment  of 
these  rare  and  precious  elements  of 
power  in  new  and  original  forme  is 
necessary  to  the  completion  of  the 
work,  but  is  not  its  most  difficult 
part.  This  habit  of  never  resting 
and  never  hasting  explains  the  fecun 
dity  of  many  of  the  great  artists  whose 
canvases  line  the  walls  of  galleries  or 
262 


Unhasting,  Unresting. 

whose  books  fill  the  shelves  of  libra 
ries.  There  is  immense  cumulative 
power  in  the  industry  which  values 
all  hours  alike  and  turns  them  equally 
to  account ;  and  there  is  great  power 
of  health  and  freshness  in  freedom 
from  the  haste  which  disturbs,  irri 
tates,  and  exhausts.  All  moments  are 
golden  to  him  who  uses  them  with 
equal  wisdom  ;  all  leisure  is  fruitful  to 
him  whose  nature  ripens  in  the  mellow 
calm  of  afternoon  no  less  than  in  the 
stirring  morning  air.  To  be  always 
receiving  the  teachings  of  experience 
and  the  vitality  of  Nature,  and  giving 
them  back  in  one's  habitual  occupa 
tion,  is  to  establish  a  true  harmony 
between  one's  self  and  one's  task, 
and,  like  Nature,  to  weave  a  seam 
less  robe  out  of  the  diverse  threads 
and  stuffs  which  come  to  the  invisible 
loom. 

263 


Chapter  XXV. 

Health. 

TN  the  great  writers  we  are  im- 
pressed  with  a  certain  breadth 
and  poise  and  sanity.  They  are 
simple,  natural,  direct ;  they  deal 
with  the  universal  experiences  ;  their 
work  has  a  certain  elemental  quality 
which  allies  it  with  Nature.  There 
is  nothing  exclusive  in  their  thought, 
esoteric  in  their  methods,  or  unsocial 
in  their  temper.  They  are  free  from 
idiosyncrasies,  oddities,  eccentricities. 
They  are  genuinely  original,  but  they 
never  surprise  us ;  they  are  pro 
foundly  true,  but  they  never  startle 
us  with  novelties.  They  produce 
264 


Health. 

the  most  lasting  impressions  by  the 
simplest  means.  Their  skill  is  re 
vealed,  not  in  cunningly  devised 
tricks  of  rhyme  and  turns  of  speech, 
but  in  an  easy  and  winning  familiar 
ity  with  the  resources  of  human  ex 
perience  and  expression.  Their 
workmanship  is  not  artifice,  but  art, 
which  is  a  very  different  matter. 
They  fill  us  with  an  ample  and  tonic 
atmosphere;  they  give  us  the  sweep 
of  the  horizon  ;  clear  skies  and  sweet 
earth  and  wholesome  life  glow  over 
or  arise  about  us  whenever  we  open 
their  pages.  They  are  free  from  the 
cant  of  professionalism,  from  the  dry- 
ness  of  the  study,  from  the  phrase 
ology  of  the  schools,  from  all  kinds 
of  morbid  self-consciousness ;  they 
impress  us  as  vigorous,  wholesome 
men,  dealing  with  normal  things  in 
a  large,  objective,  healthy  way.  They 
265 


Health. 

represent  a  vitality  raised  above  the 
average,  not  depressed  below  it ;  a 
knowledge  of  life  gained  by  mastery 
of  the  conditions  of  natural  living, 
not  by  violation  of  them  ;  they  give 
us  the  revelation  which  comes  through 
superabundant  health,  not  through 
debility  and  disease.  These  masters 
of  the  richest  of  the  arts  are  not  blind 
to  the  morbid  and  diseased  condi 
tions  which  exist  among  men  ;  they 
are  not  indifferent  to  the  hard  and 
tragic  fate  which  besets  and  baffles  so 
many  men  and  women  ;  they  are  not 
oblivious  of  the  sadness  and  pathos 
which  gather  about  every  career,  how 
ever  noble  and  effective,,  and  enter 
into  every  experience.  They  are 
peculiarly  sensitive  to  these  dark  and 
forbidding  phases  of  the  life  of  man 
in  this  mysterious  world  ;  these  are, 
indeed,  the  v'ery  phases  and  aspects 
266 


Health. 

which  touch  their  imagination  most 
deeply  and  appeal  most  powerfully 
to  their  thought.  The  tragic  side  of 
experience  is  the  material  out  of 
which  much  of  the  greatest  literature 
iscompounded ;  and  in  portraying  the 
tragic  hero  and  interpreting  the  tragic 
career  the  highest  genius  of  the  world 
has  found  its  most  absorbingand  com 
manding  task.  Agamemnon,  CEdi- 
pus,  Lear,  Faust,  and  Pere  Goriot  are 
central  figures  in  that  world  •of  the 
imagination  with  which  the  great 
writers  have  supplemented  the  world 
of  reality.  It  is  not  difference  of 
theme  which  separates  as  by  a  chasm 
the  great  sane  masters  of  expression 
from  the  morbid  and  diseased  inter 
preters  of  human  life ;  it  is  clear 
ness  and  sanity  in  dealing  with  these 
matters,  —  a  true  perspective,  and  a 
sound  sense  of  proportion.  A 
267 


Health. 

healthy  man  studies  disease,  compre 
hends  and  describes  it  as  disease  ;  a 
sick  man  treats  it  as  normal.  To  the 
first,  the  world  is  wholesome  and  life 
is  healthful,  with  a  considerable  per 
centage  of  disease  preying  upon  its 
vitality  and  diminishing  its  strength; 
to  the  second,  sickness  of  soul 
and  body  are  universal  and  natural. 
To  the  first,  Nature  is  sweet  and 
sound  and  the  world  is  sane,  with 
here  and  there  a  hospital  to  blot  the 
landscape ;  to  the  second,  the  uni 
verse  is  a  vast  sick-room,  with 
occasional  glimpses  of  blue  sky 
through  the  windows.  The  plays 
of  ^Eschylus  and  Shakspeare  solem 
nize  our  thought  and  make  us  aware 
of  the  vast  range  of  the  elements 
which  enter  into  the  problem  of  life; 
but  they  affect  us  as  Nature  affects 
us,  —  with  a  sense  of  much  hardness 
268 


Health. 

and  of  the  presence  of  tragic  forces, 
but  also  of  a  victorious  vitality,  an 
enormous  reserve  power  of  life. 
The  plays  of  Maeterlinck,  on  the 
other  hand,  convey  an  impression  of 
brooding  and  abnormal  terror;  a 
haunting  sense  of  unseen  and  malig 
nant  powers ;  we  are  in  a  world 
which  is  smitten  with  unreality  by 
reason  of  the  preponderance  and 
supremacy  of  evil.  The  Odyssey  is 
a  noble  example  of  a  sane  and  health 
ful  book,  full  of  vitality,  change,  stir, 
adventure ;  full  also  of  calamity, 
mischance,  hardship,  and  suffering. 
But  in  the  story,  as  in  life  seen  with 
any  breadth  of  view,  the  miseries  and 
misfortunes  are  immensely  overbal 
anced  by  vitality  and  endurance. 
Ulysses  has  his  moments  of  discour 
agement,  but  he  is  superior  to  his 
fate.  The  charm  of  the  story  lies  in 
269 


Health. 

its  elemental  breadth,  simplicity  and 
sanity.  Its  whole  movement  is  out 
of  doors;  the  sting  of  the  brine  is  in 
it,  but  so  also  is  the  wild  free  breath 
of  the  sea ;  the  roar  of  the  surf  on 
the  rocks  thunders  through  it,  but 
there  is  also  the  clear  sky  and  the 
shining  stars.  One  feels  that  he  is 
in  a  hard  world,  but  it  is  a  real  world, 
—  not  a  hospital,  a  mad-house,  or  a 
place  of  fantastic  dreams. 

It  is  a  deep  and  sound  instinct 
which  leads  the  man  who  has  lost  his 
health  back  to  Nature.  A  great  mass 
of  sickness  yields  speedily  to  her 
silent  ministrations.  There  is  no 
medicine  so  potent  as  the  sweet 
breath  and  the  sweeter  seclusion  of 
the  woods ;  there  is  no  tonic  like  a 
free  life  under  the  open  sky.  Insan 
ity  goes  out  of  one's  blood  when  the 
song  of  the  pines  is  in  one's  ears  and 
270 


Health. 

the  rustle  of  leaves  under  one's  feet. 
In  the  silence  of  the  wood  health 
waits  like  an  invisible  goddess,  swift 
to  divide  her  stores  with  every  one 
who  has  faith  enough  to  come  to  the 
shrine.  And  upon  health  in  the  fun 
damental  sense  depends  the  power 
of  seeing  clearly,  of  feeling  freshly, 
and  of  producing  continuously.  For 
health  means  harmony  of  life  with 
the  fundamental  laws ;  the  accord 
between  man  and  Nature  which  keeps 
him  in  touch  with  the  sources  of 
power.  The  man  who  is  smitten 
with  disease  in  mind  or  character 
often  creates  beautiful  things ;  but 
his  production  is  sporadic  and  lim 
ited.  He  is  out  of  relation  with  the 
vital  forces  ;  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  life  of  men  in  its  deeper  and 
nobler  aspects.  It  is  at  this  point 
and  for  this  reason  that  great  art  and 
271 


Health. 

fundamental  morals  are  bound  to 
gether  in  indissoluble  bonds.  The 
universe  is  not  an  accident,  and  man's 
life  in  it  is  not  a  matter  of  chance. 
The  world  and  man  are  under  the 
rule  of  certain  laws  which  are  not  ar 
bitrarily  imposed  by  a  superior  power, 
but  which  are  wrought  into  the  very 
fibre  of  things.  The  artist  who  per 
sistently  violates  those  laws  is  not 
breaking  a  series  of  conventional 
rules  ;  he  is  violating  his  own  nature, 
severing  the  vital  ties  which  unite 
him  to  his  fellows,  filling  up  the 
channels  through  which  power  flows 
to  him,  and  steadily  diminishing  his 
creative  and  productive  energy. 
When  disease  assails  the  body,  it 
invariably  diminishes  the  working 
force  in  some  direction  ;  when  it  fas 
tens  upon  the  character,  it  saps  the 
strength  which  is  essential  to  long- 
272 


Health. 

sustained  and  heroic  tasks.  A  man 
cannot  do  the  work  of  Dante, 
Michael  Angelo,  or  Shakspeare  if 
he  lacks  a  clear  head,  a  vigorous 
will,  or  a  steady  hand.  Moral  san 
ity,  health  of  soul,  lie  at  the  founda 
tion  of  a  great  career  in  the  higher 
fields  of  activity.  To  bear  the  fruits 
of  life  year  after  year,  as  the  trees 
bear  their  fruits  and  the  fields  their 
grain,  one  must  have  that  divine 
health  which  Nature  distils  in  the 
woods  or  in  the  air  of  the  great 
seas. 


273 


Chapter  XXVI. 

Work  and  Play. 

^TOTHING  in  natural  processes 
^  is  more  suggestive  than  the 
apparent  ease  with  which  the  great 
est  power  is  put  forth  and  the  most 
diverse  and  difficult  tasks  accom 
plished.  Nature  never  rests,  and  yet 
is  always  in  repose  ;  she  never  ceases 
to  work,  and  yet  always  appears  to 
be  at  play.  The  expenditure  of 
power  involved  in  the  change  from 
winter  to  summer  is  incalculable ; 
but  the  change  is  accomplished  so 
quietly  and  by  such  delicate  grada 
tions  that  it  is  impossible  to  associate 
the  idea  of  toil  with  it.  There  is  no 
strenuous  putting  forth  of  force ; 
274 


Work  and  Play. 

there  is  rather  the  overflow  of  a 
fathomless  life.  The  tide  of  life 
runs  to  the  summit  of  the  remotest 
mountain  which  nourishes  a  bit  of 
verdure  as  easily  as  the  water  sweeps 
in  from  the  sea  when  the  tide  turns 
and  the  creeks  and  inlets  begin  to 
sing  once  more  in  the  music  of 
returning  waves.  The  secret  of  this 
silent,  invisible,  easy  play  of  force 
and  accomplishment  of  ends  lies  per 
haps  in  perfect  adaptation  of  instru-j 
ment  to  task,  in  absence  of  friction,  I 
in  complete  harmony  between  power, 
methods,  and  ultimate  aims.  The 
entire  harmony  which  characterizes 
Nature  in  her  unconsciousness  is  not 
possible  to  man  in  his  consciousness  ; 
but  the  conditions  under  which  the 
life  of  Nature  manifests  itself  and 
bears  its  manifold  fruits  is  rich  in 
hints  and  suggestions.  At  no  point 
275 


Work  and  Play. 

is  the  analogy  between  that  life,  in 
certain  of  its  aspects,  and  the  life  of 
man  more  striking  and  helpful. 

The  secret  of  heroic  work  is  har- 

« 

mony  between  the  man  and  his  task; 
an  adjustment  so  complete  that  the 
putting  forth  of  strength  in  a  specific 
direction  becomes  as  natural  and  in 
stinctive  as  breathing  or  walking.  So 
long  as  we  toil,  we  are  slaves,  and  the 
labor  of  the  slave  is  always  stamped 
with  a  certain  inferiority.  Toil  in 
volves  drudgery,  and  is  mechanical 
and  perfunctory;  it  is  devoid  of  per 
sonality,  beauty,  or  power;  it  implies 
a  dominating  force  accomplishing  its 
ends  by  sheer  authority,  not  a  free  hu 
man  spirit  giving  its  vitality  full  play. 
When  toil  becomes  work,  drudgery 
gives  place  to  a  conscientious  and 
often  cheerful  expenditure  of  power 
and  surrender  of  ease.  The  worker 
276 


Work  and   Play. 

is  free,  and  puts  his  heart  and  soul  into 
his  work  with  the  joy  of  one  who 
serves  his  own  high  aims  rather  than 
bends  unwillingly  to  an  authority 
stronger  than  his  own  personality.  In 
its  subordination  of  the  minor  to  the 
major  motives  of  living,  its  quiet 
substitution  of  the  lower  for  the 
higher  pleasures,  its  discipline,  and 
its  self-sacrifice,  work,  instead  of  be 
ing  the  traditional  curse  of  the  race, 
is  its  blessing,  its  happiness,  and  its 
reward.  The  heroic  workers  of  the 
world  are  the  men  whose  tasks  and 
achievements  are  most  enviable ; 
they  are  lifted  above  themselves  by 
absorption  in  great  undertakings; 
they  are  engrossed  in  occupations 
which  not  only  ease  the  pain  of 
living  by  steadily  calling  forth  the 
highest  in  the  worker,  but  which 
educate,  liberate,  and  enrich  even 
277 


Work   and   Play. 

while  they  exhaust.  The  strain  of 
Herculean  work  is  often  hard  to  bear, 
but  the  man  who  feels  it  has  the  con 
sciousness  that  he  is  doing  a  man's 
task  in  the  brief  day  of  life  and  earn 
ing  a  man's  reward. 

As  work  is  higher  toil,  so  is  play  • 
higher  than  work.  Toil  rests  upon 
submission,  work  on  freedom,  play 
on  spontaneity  and  self-unconscious 
ness.  When  toil  becomes  free,  it  is 
transformed  into  work ;  and  when 
work  becomes  spontaneous  and  in 
stinctive  it  is  transformed  into  play. 
The  toiler  is  a  slave,  the  worker  a 
freeman,  the  man  who  plays  an  artist.  • 
When  work  rises  into  the  sphere  of 
creativeness,  takes  on  new  forms, 
breathes  the  vital  spirit,  becomes 
distinctive  and  individual,  it  is  trans 
formed  into  art.  It  is  no  longer 
accomplished  under  the  law  of  neces- 
278 


Work  and   Play. 

sity ;  it  has  become  free.  It  is  no 
longer  full  of  strain  and  pain  ;  it  is 
joyful.  It  is  no  longer  the  strenu 
ous  putting  forth  of  power;  it  is  the 
natural  overflow  of  a  rich  and  power 
ful  nature.  It  is  no  longer  a  means 
to  something  apart  from  and  beyond 
itself;  it  is  a  joy  and  satisfaction  in  * 
itself.  The  drudgery  of  apprentice 
ship  gives  place  to  the  independence 
and  inventiveness  of  mastery  ;  the 
slavery  to  time  and  place,  to  model 
and  method,  is  succeeded  by  the  free 
dom  of  art.  To  turn  work  into* 
play  is,  therefore,  the  highest  achieve 
ment  of  active  life  ;  and  to  rise,  in 
any  department  of  work,  from  ap 
prenticeship  and  artisanship  to  the 
ease  and  freedom  of  the  artist,  is  to 
attain  the  most  genuine  and  satisfy 
ing  success  which  a  life  of  activity 
offers. 

279 


i 


Work  and   Play. 

Play  is  not  free  from  fatigue,  but 
it  is  free  from  friction,  irritation, " 
repression.  It  is  in  no  sense  indo 
lent  or  easeful ;  on  the  contrary  it 
involves  the  most  prodigal  expendi 
ture  of  strength.  In  games  of  com 
petitive  endurance  a  boy  counts  no 
putting  forth  of  strength  too  severe, 
no  subsequent  fatigue  too  great ;  the 
more  exacting  the  test  the  deeper  the 
satisfaction  of  sustaining  it.  The 
i  pleasure  of  play  is  not  absence  of 
[effort,  but  the  consciousness  of  free- 
idom  ;  not  escape  from  weariness,  but 
the  feeling  that  one  has  put  himself 
into  the  great  game  of  life  master 
fully.  When  work  becomes  play  it 
does  not  cease  to  be  exhausting,  but 
the  weariness  which  comes  with  it 
is  normal ;  it  does  not  cease  to  im 
pose  severe  conditions  on  the  worker, 
but  these  conditions  are  joyfully,  in- 
280 


Work  and  Play. 

stead  of  reluctantly,  accepted.  The 
man  who  turns  work  into  play,  in 
stead  of  being  slothful,  becomes 
notable  by  reason  of  the  ardor  and 
prodigality  with  which  he  pours 
himself  out  upon  his  tasks.  For 
when  the  joy  of  working  takes  pos 
session  of  a  man,  he  ceases  to  take 
account  of  times  and  days  and  places  ; 
he  is  always  at  work,  for  work  is  to 
him  the  normal  form  of  activity.  A 
full  nature,  putting  itself  forth  with 
ease  and  power,  and  expressing  that 
which  is  distinctive  and  individual 
in  it  in  the  work  of  mind  and  hand, 
—  this  is  what  the  worker  becomes 
when  he  is  transformed  into  the 
artist.  He  not  only  loves  his  task, — 
the  man  in  the  working  stage  often 
loves  his  work,  —  but  he  individual 
izes  it,  handles  it  freely,  freshly, 
originally.  He  makes  his  own  times, 
281 


Work  and   Play. 

develops  his  own  methods,  fashions 
his  own  tools.  He  deals  with  his 
material  as  if  he  had  created  it.  He 
does  not  work  by  rule,  but  by  in 
stinct  and  reason  ;  he  does  not  imi 
tate,  he  creates  ;  he  does  not  accept 
conventional  styles  and  aims,  he 
forms  his  own  style  and  determines 
the  ends  to  which  he  moves.  The 
work  which  he  does  with  his  hands 
is  not  a  thing  outside  of  his  con 
sciousness  and  apart  from  his  expe 
rience  ;  it  is  a  part  of  himself,  for  it 
is  the  expression  of  his  own  soul. 
It  is  his  personal  word  to  the  world  ; 
his  revelation  of  the  order  of  things 
as  he  sees  it ;  his  symbol  of  the 
beauty  and  power  and  terror  of  life. 
Goethe  said  that  his  works,  taken 
together,  constituted  one  great  con 
fession  ;  and  this  is  true  of  the 
works  of  all  creative  men.  What 
282 


Work  and   Play. 

they  leave  behind  in  language,  picture, 
or  stone  is  a  part  of  themselves  ;  the 
expression  of  the  immortal  part.  In 
the  work  of  such  a  man  as  Rem 
brandt,  for  instance,  one  feels  the 
presence  not  so  much  of  skill  and 
talent  as  of  a  tremendous  personal 
force;  the  artist  is  hardly  veiled  by 
the  art ;  magnificent  as  the  achieve 
ment  is,  it  hints  at  a  power  behind 
it  of  which  it  is  a  very  imperfect  rev 
elation.  The  tragedy  of  King  Lear 
affects  us  in  the  same  way :  it  is 
colossal  in  itself,  but  the  imagination 
cannot  rest  within  the  limits  of  the 
play  ;  it  knows  instinctively  that  it 
is  in  the  presence  of  a  creative  energy 
more  commanding  than  the  majestic 
drama  which  it  has  fashioned. 


Chapter  XXVII. 

Work  and  Beauty. 

T?EW  events  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  last  two  centuries  have  been 
more  striking  or  richer  in  educational 
results  than  that  rediscovery  of  Nature 
to  the  imagination  and  the  aesthetic 
sense,  the  record  of  which,  so  far  as 
English  literature  is  concerned,  is  to  be 
found  between  the  letters  of  Gray  and 
the  verse  of  Whitman.  A  very  large 
part  of  the  natural  world  was  alien, 
repellent,  inimical  to  mediaeval  men 
and  to  their  successors  far  on  into 
the  modern  period.  The  solitude  of 
deep  woods,  the  lonely  heights  of 
the  great  hills,  the  wildness  of  vast 
284 


Work  and  Beauty. 

moors,  the  rock-strewn  shore  of  the 
sea,  which  appeal  so  powerfully  to  the 
modern  imagination,  were  full  of  re 
pulsion  and  terror  to  an  imagination 
largely  uneducated  in  this  direction. 
From  the  days  of  Petrarch  to  those 
of  Ruskin  the  knowledge  of  Nature 
has  not  been  widened  more  radically 
than  has  the  love  of  Nature  and  the 
ability  to  understand  and  appreciate 
the  Protean  aspects  through  which 
her  elusive  but  pervasive  beauty  re 
veals  itself.  We  seek  what  our  an 
cestors  shunned,  we  love  what  they 
disliked,  we  are  overwhelmed  with 
beauty  where  they  were  oppressed 
with  desolation  and  ugliness. 

The  Alps  refresh  and  lift  us  above 
ourselves  ;  the  cliffs  against  which  the 
sea  dashes  along  the  coast  of  Norway 
draw  us  from  the  ends  of  the  earth ; 
the  Scotch  highlands  fill  us  with  fresh 

285 


Work  and  Beauty. 

life,  and  beguile  us  out  of  conventions 
into  freedom  and  joy.  To  the  men 
of  the  beginning  of  the  last  century 
these  sublime  aspects  of  the  world 
were  full  of  terror  and  repulsion. 

This  extraordinary  extension  of 
human  interest  in  and  affection  for 
Nature  suggests  that  the  standard  of 
beauty  is  in  her  rather  than  in  us,  and 
that  the  training  of  the  aesthetic  sense 
and  of  the  imagination  so  constantly 
extends  the  reign  of  beauty  through 
out  Nature  as  to  afford  ground  for  be 
lieving  that  that  reign  is  universal,  and 
that  when  we  fail  to  detect  beauty  in 
any  aspect  or  form  of  natural  life  our 
perceptive  powers  are  at  fault.  For 
Nature  is  saturated  with  beauty.  It 
flows  from  her  central  life  as  truly  as 
it  discloses  itself  in  her  most  delicate 
forms ;  it  is  wrought  into  her  very 
structure;  it  is  not  decorative  merely, 
286 


Work  and  Beauty. 

it  is  organic ;  it  not  only  plays  on  the 
surface,  it  is  diffused  throughout  her 
whole  being.  It  is  everywhere  iden 
tical  with  life  and  at  one  with  power. 
This  universal  beauty,  which  shines 
in  the  stars,  and  blooms  in  the  flowers, 
and  builds  in  the  woods  cathedral 
aisles  of  pillared  trunk  and  arching 
branch,  lies  largely  in  the  perfect 
workmanship  which  secures  symme 
try,  enforces  subordination  of  the  parts 
to  the  whole,  holds  the  elements  of 
vitality  and  form  in  perfect  balance, 
and  exacts  implicit  obedience  to  the 
law  of  the  type.  I  When  Nature  has 
finished  her  work  on  any  particular 
form  she  has  stamped  it  with  some 
kind  of  beauty.  We  may  not  discern 
it  at  the  moment,  as  our  ancestors  so 
often  failed  to  see  beauty  where  we 
see  it  at  a  glance ;  but  it  is  there  if 
we  have  the  intelligence  to  discover 
287 


Work  and  Beauty. 

it.  For  nothing  is  really  finished 
until  it  is  beautiful,  and  beauty  is  the 
final  form  toward  which  Nature  con 
stantly  strives.  She  is  entirely  indif 
ferent  as  to  the  quality  of  the  material 
upon  which  she  works ;  she  knows 
no  distinctions  or  degrees  ;  everything 
is  alike  common  and  precious  to  her. 
The  rarest  flower  that  blooms  is 
touched  with  a  loveliness  so  delicate 
that  it  seems  almost  spiritual ;  but 
the  ferns,  which  fairly  wall  in  the 
rough,  wild-wood  roads,  are  not  less 
exquisitely  shaped  and  moulded. 
Out  of  the  mist  and  the  light  the 
glory  of  sunset  strikes  across  the 
world,  and  the  hearts  of  men  are  awed 
i  and  purified  as  if  they  had  looked 
I  through  the  gates  of  Paradise. 

It  is  clear  that  beauty  is  neither 
incidental  nor  decorative  in  Nature ; 
it  is  structural  and  organic.     It  marks 
288 


Work  and  Beauty. 

the  end  of  the  creative  process  in 
every  direction,  and  it  reveals  the  final 
form.  In  like  manner  it  must  enter 
into  the  activity  of  men ;  for  it  is  not 
a  charm  which  a  man's  work  may 
possess  or  reject ;  it  is  essential  to  the 
wholeness  and  completeness  of  that 
work.  Until  he  commands  it  his 
work  is  provisional  and  preparatory. 
It  may  be  noble  and  useful,  but  it 
cannot  be  final  and  enduring.  The 
fruits  of  toil  are  rarely  beautiful ; 
they  are  sweet  and  sound,  but  they 
are  rudimentary.  The  products  of 
work  are  often,  though  not  neces 
sarily,  beautiful ;  but  when  work  is 
transformed  into  play  by  becoming 
spontaneous,  free,  joyous,  and  indi 
vidual,  it  rises  at  once  into  the  world 
of  the  beautiful.  Its  product  is  no 
longer  a  piece  of  drudgery,  it  is  a  piece 
of  art ;  its  maker  is  no  longer  an  arti- 
19  289 


Work  and  Beauty. 

san,  he  is  an  artist.  There  is  always 
at  hand,  therefore,  a  test  of  the  quality 
of  that  which  a  man  produces,  a  stand 
ard  measure  of  his  success,  a  method 
of  determining  how  far  he  has  gone 
in  that  full  and  free  development  of 
himself  in  which  the  individual  life 
finds  its  consummation.  It  must  be 
constantly  borne  in  mind  that  to  be 
an  artist  in  one's  treatment  and  use 
of  life  it  is  not  necessary  that  one 
should  deal  with  any  particular  kind 
of  material ;  for  distinction  does  not 
inhere  in  material,  but  in  treatment. 
A  man  may  use  the  finest  marble 
with  the  mechanical  and  slavish  dex- 
texity  of  an  artisan,  or  he  may  carve 
the  end  of  a  half-burnt  fagot  with  the 
spirit  and  force  of  an  artist,  as  did 
Gasparo  Becerra.  The  quality  of  art 
resides  in  the  man,  not  in  the  sub 
stance  upon  which  he  works.  In 
290 


Work  and  Beauty. 

every  occupation  there  are,  therefore, 
all  the  stages  which  separate  perfec 
tion  from  crudity,  finality  of  form 
from  rudimentary  beginning ;  and 
real  success  lies  in  securing  that  mas 
tery  which  enables  a  man  to  do  his 
work  with  freshness,  freedom,  and 
power ;  to  stamp  it  with  individuality 
by  making  it  the  full  and  powerful 
expression  of  his  own  nature. 

Now,  this  mastery  is  not  secured 
in  any  field  of  activity  until  beauty 
stamps  the  accomplished  work  and 
characterizes  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  done.  In  so  far  as  work  falls  short 
of  beauty  it  falls  short  of  perfection. 
Slovenliness,  crudity,  indifference  to 
finish  of  detail  and  soundness  of 
workmanship,  furnish  infallible  evi 
dence  that  the  man  behind  the  work 
is  still  an  apprentice  ;  he  has  not  come 
to  maturity  of  insight  and  effective- 
291 


Work  and  Beauty. 

ness.  These  defects  show  lack  of 
conscience,  lowness  of  aim,  or  defect 
in  that  training  which  every  man 
ought  to  impose  upon  himself  as 
a  duty  to  himself.  It  is  immoral  to 
do  clumsily  that  which  we  ought  to 
do  skilfully,  to  do  carelessly  that 
which  ought  to  be  done  with  con 
summate  patience,  to  be  satisfied  with 
ugliness  when  beauty  is  within  reach. 
Our  natures  never  fully  express  them 
selves  so  long  as  the  language  they 
employ  is  limited  in  vocabulary  and 
imperfect  in  grammar.  The  artist 
fails  to  convey  his  vision  to  us  so 
long  as  the  resources  of  his  craft  are 
partially  beyond  his  grasp ;  the  pianist 
cannot  move  us  until  the  instrument 
is  so  thoroughly  mastered  that  it 
responds  to  his  touch  as  if  it  were 
but  an  extension  of  his  own  organs 
of  expression.  In  like  manner  the 
292 


Work  and  Beauty. 

full  and  free  utterance  of  a  man's 
deepest  self  is  hindered,  baffled,  and 
limited  in  the  exact  degree  in  which 
he  has  neglected  or  failed  to  master 
the  materials  in  which,  and  the  tools 
with  which,  he  works.  Crudity  which 
persists  is  evidence  either  of  defect 
of  quality  in  the  workman  or  of  lack 
of  conscience  in  his  work ;  for  the 
degree  of  thoroughness  of  workman 
ship  is  the  real  test  of  morality  in  the 
worker.  The  man  of  conscience  must 
reach  the  stage  of  beauty  as  certainly 
as  the  man  of  artistic  quality,  unless 
Nature  fails  to  reinforce  his  effort  with 
innate  capacity.  In  the  degree,  there 
fore,  in  which  a  man  fails  to  stamp 
his  work  with  beauty  he  fails  in  loy 
alty  to  himself  and  in  that  real  and 
enduring  success  which  is  as  much 
a  matter  of  duty  as  of  opportunity. 
To  become  an  artist  in  this  sense  is 
293 


Work  and  Beauty. 

not  the  privilege  of  the  elect  few ;  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  many.  To  fall 
short  of  it  is  to  fail  to  produce  the 
fruit  which  the  tree  was  appointed 
to  bear. 


294 


Chapter  XXVIII. 

The  Rhythmic  Movement. 


poets  felt  the  rhythmic  ele- 
ment  in  Nature  in  those  far- 
off  beginnings  of  time  when  the 
myth-makers  told  their  stories.  The 
flow  of  rivers,  the  procession  of 
stars,  the  antiphony  of  day  and  night, 
the  silent  but  inviolate  order  of  the 
seasons,  made  the  earliest  men  of 
observation  and  imagination  aware 
of  a  rhythm  to  which  all  natural 
movements  were  set.  Every  kind  of 
action  betrays  a  melodic  tendency, 
and  there  are  days  when  one  seems 
to  hear  the  whole  world,  —  become 
audible,  like  some  great  epic  poem 
295 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

recited  by  winds  and  seas.  The 
tinkle  of  the  mountain  brook,  sound 
ing  all  manner  of  clear,  fresh  notes, 
sings  in  the  ear  that  has  learned  to 
distinguish  the  different  tones  and 

o 

has  become  familiar  with  a  gamut 
of  sounds  wholly  alien  from  human 
vocalization  or  mechanism  and  yet 
full  of  a  penetrating  melodic  quality. 
To  one  who  has  listened  attentively 
to  the  tones  of  different  kinds  of 
trees,  the  play  of  winds  upon  the 
leaves  has  a  harmonic  effect,  —  one 
note  supplied  by  the  pine,  another 
by  the  oak,  and  still  another  by  the 
elm.  On  a  warm  afternoon  the  stir 
ring  of  the  pine's  boughs  is  like  the 
gentle  breathing  of  the  summer  day  ; 
as  if  the  drowsy  earth  had  fallen 
asleep  and  gave  no  sound  save  quiet 
breathing.  The  sea  also  has  its 
music ;  a  magic  music  which  has 
296 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

called  men  away  from  ease  and  safety 
and  set  them  adrift  with  wind  and 
tide  since  time  began  ;  sometimes  a 
siren  song  luring  them  to  destruc 
tion,  sometimes  that  heroic  music  to 
which  great  adventures  and  splendid 
discoveries  are  set. 

The  activities  of  men  working  to 
gether  with  Nature  betray  the  same 
rhythmic  tendency ;  as  if  Nature 
drew  into  the  vast  flow  of  things  all 
lesser  works  and  sounds.  The  sail 
ors  sing  at  their  tasks  by  an  instinct 
which  feels,  even  when  it  does  not 
understand,  the  steady  pulsations  of 
labor;  and  the  cries  and  shouts  and 
traditionary  cc  yo-he-yo  "  on  a  ship 
that  is  being  loaded  bring  with  them 
all  manner  of  reminiscences  and  hints 
of  the  sea ;  one  seems  to  hear,  in 
mimic  tones,  the  singing  of  the  spars, 
the  crack  of  the  sail  suddenly  catch- 
297 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

ing  the  breeze,  the  wild,  free  roar  and 
rush  of  the  waves  swept  on  by  wind 
with  which  they  are  in  unison.  And 
on  clear  nights,  far  inland,  one  can 
recall  the  rhythmic  movement  of  the 
spars  against  the  illimitable  sky,  and 
the  vast,  mysterious  swell  of  the 
ocean,  like  the  unconscious  respira 
tion  of  the  earth  itself. 

In  like  order,  too,  the  hammers 
rang  on  the  ship  when  keel  and 
frame  were  put  together  in  the  ship 
yard.  And  still  farther  back,  the 
strokes  of  axes  felling  the  trees  were 
also  set  in  some  harmonic  tune.  On 
an  October  day,  the  ring  of  the  axe 
at  a  distance  in  the  woods  sends  out 
not  only  an  inspiring  note  of  health, 
power,  and  successful  work,  but  there 
is  a  real  music  in  the  recurrent  strokes. 
So,  too,  the  swing  of  the  scythe  or 
the  cradle  distil  a  harmony  of  move- 
298 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

ment  and  sound  which  makes  a  har 
vest  field  the  oldest  acted  poem 
known  among  men  ;  there  are  few 
places  where  men  seem  so  much  a 
part  of  Nature,  few  tasks  which  seem 
to  give  them  such  real  and  genuine 
dignity.  The  sounds  of  flails  falling 
on  the  grain  spread  on  the  floor  of 
the  barn  beat  like  a  great  rhyme. 

Wherever  energy  is  put  forth  in 
any  kind  of  work  with  Nature  the 
rhythmic  quality,  shared  alike  by  the 
worker  and  the  world  which  enfolds 
him,  is  revealed.  The  man  who  fells 
the  oak  with  swift  and  steady  stroke 
is  conforming  to  a  universal  law 
when  he  puts  regular  intervals  be 
tween  the  successive  blows  of  the 
axe;  he  is  unconsciously  working  in 
harmony  with  his  own  constitution 
and  with  the  constitution  of  Nature. 
In  the  ground  under  his  feet  and  in 
299 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

the  woods  which  surround  him,  life 
moves  in  steady  although  inaudible 
pulsations.  The  vital  currents  re 
cede  and  return  with  a  regularity 
which  is  never  varied ;  the  very 
leaves  on  the  trees  find  their  places 
in  an  order  which  science  has  de 
tected  ;  the  stars  overhead  return  to 
their  places  with  such  exactness  of 
movement  that  their  position  at  any 
hour  in  the  farthest  future  can  be 
accurately  determined.  The  tides 
come  flooding  up  the  bays  and  creeks 
with  a  regularity  which  twice  a  day, 
in  ebb  and  flow,  sings  the  song  of 
the  sea  along  the  shores  of  every 
continent  and  island.  The  very 
clouds,  so  accidental  and  casual  in 
appearance  and  disappearance,  so 
dependent  on  varying  and  changing 
conditions,  form  and  dissolve  in  an 
inviolable  order  which  we  are  not 
300 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

yet  intelligent  enough  to  discover. 
And  the  storms,  which  seem  to  make 
the  discords  in  the  universal  har 
mony  and  to  keep  chance,  chaos,  and 
confusion  potent  in  an  ordered  uni 
verse,  are  now  known  to  gather  and 
disperse  under  a  law  of  movement  as 
fixed  and  harmonic  as  that  which 
governs  the  tides. 

This  rhythmic  quality  in  Nature, 
this  flowing  movement  which  em 
braces  all  material  things  and  ex 
presses  itself  through  all  life,  becomes 
more  evident  and  more  significant 
with  each  advance  of  science.  The 
more  penetrating  the  gaze  of  science 
becomes,  the  more  immaterial  and 
mysterious  become  the  structure  of 
the  earth  and  the  forces  which  play 
through  it.  What  once  seemed  fixed 
and  stationary  is  now  seen  to  be  free 
and  flowing  ;  matter  more  and  more 
301 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

resolves  itself  into  force  ;  and  force 
becomes  more  and  more  subtle,  per 
vasive,  and  immaterial.  And  the 
more  profoundly  these  forces  are 
studied,  the  more  distinctly  does 
their  substantial  identity  appear  ;  all 
forces  tending  to  resolve  into  one 
force,  of  which  all  the  different  kinds 
of  force  are  so  many  diverse  but  kin 
dred  forms  of  manifestation.  So  del 
icate  and  sensitive  is  this  force,  —  as 
revealed,  for  example,  in  electricity,  — 
that  the  solid  earth  seems,  in  the  long 
perspective  through  which  science  sees 
all  created  things,  immaterial  and  spir 
itual,  responding  to  the  lightest  breath 
of  motion,  affected  at  vast  distances 
by  the  least  change  of  time  or  order. 
This  flowing  stream  of  force  in  which 
the  material  world  has  been  resolved 
hints  at  a  harmonious  movement, 
which  is  not  only  a  law  of  its  own 
302 


The  Rhythmic  Movement. 

being,  but  which  is  also  a  condition 
of  all  growth  and  life.  The  elec 
trical  motor,  twenty  miles  distant 
from  the  generator,  does  not  receive 
the  full  charge  of  power  until  its 
movement  is  synchronous  with  that 
of  the  generator  ;  when  the  two  are 
in  exact  harmony,  power  flows  in 
full  tide  from  the  source  to  the  in 
strument.  The  law  which  governs 
the  transmission  of  light,  of  heat,  of 
sound,  of  power  of  all  kinds,  hints  at 
the  same  deep  and  significant  quality 
of  rhythm  throughout  the  universe, 
andat  the  truth  which  flows  from  it,  — 
that  to  move  with  it  is  to  be  part  of 
the  fathomless  movement  of  life  which 
the  universe  reveals  and  illustrates. 


303 


Chapter  XXIX. 

The  Law  of  Harmony. 


marvellous  truth  concern- 
ing  the  structure  of  the  world, 
divined  by  the  poets  and  demon 
strated  by  the  scientists,  is  funda 
mental  in  the  life  of  man,  embosomed 
in  Nature,  and  allied  to  her  in  ways 
many  and  mysterious.  The  law  of 
rhythm  is  illustrated  in  the  individual 
and  collective  life  of  men  so  clearly 
that  history  might  be  rewritten  from 
this  standpoint.  All  the  uncon 
scious  physical  functions,  in  health, 
are  rhythmical  :  the  beating  of  the 
heart,  the  respiration,  the  circulation 
of  the  blood.  The  conscious  physi 
cal  functions  and  activities  tend  to 
3°4 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

develop  the  same  regular  order  and 
sequence,  the  same  harmonic  quality. 
The  body  adapts  itself  swiftly  to  fixed 
hours  of  exercise,  of  eating,  and  of 
sleep,  and  the  physical  expectation  is 
so  keen  and  firmly  grounded  that 
any  change  or  violation  of  this  order, 
once  established,  produces  physical 
disturbance.  And  the  physical  habits 
are  vitally  related  to  the  whole  nature ; 
they  become  in  the  highest  degree 
expressive  of  physical  and  moral 
character.  A  man's  walk  is  uncon 
sciously  rhythmical ;  his  gestures,  in 
flections,  tones,  sentences,  partake  of 
the  harmonic  quality,  which  is  deter 
mined  by  his  very  structure.  If  he 
is  a  man  of  force,  order,  and  produc 
tiveness,  his  intellectual  life  shares  in 
this  harmonic  movement,  which  be 
gins  in  the  physical  and  culminates 
in  the  spiritual  sphere. 
20  3°5 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

He  forms  habits  of  thought  which 
tend  to  become  orderly  and  fruitful ; 
he  discovers  the  hours  when  his  nature 
is  most  responsive  and  suggestive, 
and  husbands  them ;  he  learns  his 
own  rhythm  and  consciously  con 
forms  to  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
immensely  increased  freedom  and 
power  which  flow  from  harmonic 
obedience.  He  develops  his  own 
method  and  style,  for  he  learns  that 
these  apparently  external  things  are 
really  the  breathings  of  his  own  deep 
est  life.  This  mysterious  unity  of 
a  man's  nature,  this  vital  connection 
between  what  the  man  is  and  what 
he  does,  comes  to  light  the  moment 
we  study  any  department  of  human 
expression.  Metre,  for  instance,  finds 
its  physiological  basis  in  respiration, 
and  is  determined  largely  by  this 
physical  action.  The  metre  of 
306 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

"Hiawatha/'  which  reads  so  easily  that 
it  seems  to  flow  from  the  lips,  owes  this 
ease  to  its  exact  measurement  of  the 
expulsion  of  the  air  from  the  lungs. 
So  nicely  is  it  adjusted  to  the  physi 
cal  act  of  breathing  that  one  can  re 
cite  lines  which  conform  to  it  almost 
as  easily  as  one  can  breathe ;  a  fact 
which  explains  its  ancient  popularity 
among  makers  and  reciters  of  epic 
verse.  Its  flow  makes  it,  also,  the 
easy  conquest  of  the  memory. 

This  illustration  hints  at  the  secret 
of  the  singular  individualism  of  style, 
which,  in  the  case  of  great  writers,  is  as 
personal  as  the  contour  of  the  face  or 
its  coloring.  Most  men  have  phrases 
and  forms  of  expression  which  tend 
to  recur ;  but  they  have  no  style,  — 
no  individual  construction  of  sentences 
and  choice  of  words.  Style  is  har 
monic  ;  it  has  order,  sequence,  flow ; 
307 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

it  is  vitally  expressive  of  the  nature 
of  the  man  who  uses  it.  If  he  is 
a  great  writer,  it  is  flesh  of  his  flesh 
and  bone  of  his  bone.  It  is  the  con 
fluence  of  his  physical,  intellectual, 
and  spiritual  forces ;  it  is  the  fusion 
of  all  his  qualities ;  it  is  his  rhythm. 
We  instinctively  feel  the  posses 
sion  of  the  rhythmic  quality  in  a 
speaker.  For  the  man  who  finds 
his  rhythm  and  surrenders  himself 
to  it,  expresses  himself  with  an 
ease,  freedom,  beauty,  and  charm 
which  set  us  at  rest  with  the  first 
sentence,  and  cast  a  spell  of  a 
subtle  enchantment  over  us ;  the  en 
chantment  of  that  harmonious  rela 
tion  to  one's  time,  task,  materials, 
and  self  in  which  a  fresh  note  always 
sounds.  The  instinct  for  harmony 
in  every  listener  bears  witness  to  its 
presence  in  the  delight  with  which 
308 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

such  a  speaker  is  heard.  We  are 
won  for  a  time  out  of  all  thought  of 
ourselves,  out  of  all  antagonism,  out 
of  all  care  and  sorrow,  by  the  vi 
bration  of  a  single  note  of  that 
deep  harmony  which  pervades  the 
universe. 

In  this  illustration  lies  the  secret 
of  the  charm  of  art,  and  the  secret 
also  of  individual  power  and  produc 
tiveness.  Nature  is  not  simply  har 
monious  in  appearance ;  she  is  a  unit 
to  the  very  heart  of  her  structure ; 
and  all  the  forces  which  play  through 
her  are  rhythmic  and  harmonic.  The 
signs  are  manifold  that  we  are  stand 
ing  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  concep 
tion  of  the  material  world  and  of 
unsuspected  possibilities  of  relation 
ship  to  it.  The  vast  order  of  things 
which  surrounds  us  is  not  dead  mat 
ter  ;  it  is  flowing  force ;  and  force  of 
309 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

a  quality  so  high  and  sensitive  that 
it  presses  fast  on  that  which  we  have 
hitherto  called  spiritual.  That  force 
affects  us  in  numberless  and  mysteri 
ous  ways  ;  our  bodies  are  in  subtle 
communion  and  fellowship  with  Na 
ture  ;  our  minds  are  constantly  as 
sailed  by  influences  of  which  we  have 
hitherto  taken  no  note.  If  sounds 
can  be  transmitted  through  water  and 
through  earth,  not  by  tangible  wires 
but  by  intangible  vibrations,  the  inter 
dependence  of  all  forms  of  life  as  well 
as  of  forms  of  force  must  be  far  more 
complex  and  sensitive  than  we  have 
suspected,  and  the  relation  of  man  to 
his  world  far  more  intimate.  Every 
new  step  in  this  direction  makes  it 
more  clear  that  susceptibility  to  deli 
cate  influence,  responsiveness  to  uni 
versal  movements,  and  quality  and 
receptivity  to  power  depend  on  the 
310 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

harmonious  relations  of  the  part  with 
the  whole.  Distance  seems  to  be 
annihilated  when  movements  are  syn 
chronous  ;  power  does  not  travel  from 
point  to  point ;  it  pervades  all  things 
at  the  same  moment,  and  fills  all  that 
are  open  to  its  incoming.  Clearly  here 
are  sources  of  vitality  which  are  not 
only  inexhaustible,  but  with  which  we 
are  only  beginning  to  put  ourselves  in 
true  relations.  It  is  not  an  idle  fancy 
that  the  race  has  before  it  enlarge 
ments  of  its  life  and  a  widening  of  its 
interests  of  almost  unsuspected  range 
and  importance.  The  old  fable  of 
Antaeus  may  read  like  a  sublime 
prophecy  two  centuries  hence. 

For  the  Power  which  sustains  Na 
ture  is  the  same  power  which  sustains 
men ;  it  is  unlimited  and  illimitable. 
The  vastness  and  glory  of  its  mani 
festations  in  the  material  universe 
311 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

are  but  inadequate  symbols  of  its 
possible  manifestations  through  a 
humanity  as  obedient  to  its  laws  as 
is  Nature.  The  man  who  violates 
the  laws  of  his  nature  separates  him 
self  from  the  source  of  life  and  power, 
and  diminishes  into  the  insulation  of 
sterile  individuality ;  the  man  who 
lives  in  harmony  with  that  Power, 
with  Nature,  and  with  himself,  receives 
the  full  tide  of  vitality  which  flows 
without  limit  or  pause  from  the  crea 
tive  source.  He  is  fed  by  invisible 
rivulets,  he  is  nourished  by  unseen 
ministrants ;  health,  sanity,  fertility, 
and  joy  are  his  by  the  very  constitu 
tion  of  Nature.  There  has  been  but 
one  life,  so  far,  lived  among  men  which 
has  been  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
laws  of  life  and  in  constant  contact 
with  the  sources  of  vitality.  In  that 
life  Nature  worked  as  a  co-operative 
312 


The  Law  of  Harmony. 

force ;  language  was  as  simple,  as 
beautiful,  and  as  final  as  the  stars 
and  winds,  the  flowers  and  harvest, 
which  furnished  it  with  the  deepest 
and  richest  illustration  ;  thought  bore 
the  cumulative  fruit  of  truth  ;  conduct 
rose  to  the  level  of  aim ;  and  power 
flowed  from  it  with  immortal  fulness. 
As  time  reveals  its  essential  unity 
with  the  divine  order,  its  beauty,  its 
simplicity,  its  health,  and  its  immeas 
urable  range  become  more  and  more 
clear.  It  is  not  only  the  divinest  life 
known  to  us ;  it  is  also  the  sanest  and 
the  most  natural.  It  interprets  Na 
ture  as  no  other  life  interprets  her, 
because  Nature  and  this  transcendent 
Life  obeyed  the  same  laws  and  moved 
to  the  same  ends. 


Chapter  XXX. 

The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

TF  these  brief  chapters  have  con- 
veyed  even  a  faint  impression 
of  the  duration,  the  intimacy,  and  the 
importance  of  the  relations  between 
Nature  and  men,  they  have  made  it 
clear  that  those  relations  are  not  only 
the  oldest  recorded  facts  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  race,  but  that  they  are 
also  cumulative  in  their  influence  and 
prophetic  in  their  character.  The 
race  life  and  the  individual  life  have 
alike  received  the  deepest  education 
through  these  relationships,  which 
have  become,  as  time  has  passed, 
more  intimate,  complex,  and  myste 
rious  ;  phenomena  have  come  more 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature, 

and  more  within  the  range  of  intelli 
gence,  law  has  made  itself  increas 
ingly  clear  and  controlling  to  the 
investigating  mind ;  and  force  has 
yielded  its  secrets  with  growing 
frankness  and  made  itself  a  willing 
servant.  And  this  whole  revelation 
of  Nature,  carrying  with  it  the  edu 
cation  of  the  race,  has  steadily  risen 
in  quality  and  significance  from  what 
we  have  hitherto  called  the  material 
to  what  we  have  called  the  spiritual ; 
two  words  which  our  ignorance  has 
set  in  apposition,  but  which  really 
describe  different  aspects  of  the  one 
indivisible  life  which  flows  through 
all  forms.  Nature  is  no  longer  arf^ 
orderly  succession  of  phenomena 
alone;  she  is  also  a  symbol  of  man's 
life  ;  she  is  no  longer  a  material  ap 
pearance,  she  is  also  a  spiritual  real 
ity;  she  is  no  longer  the  shell  from 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

which  the  fully  developed  man  has 
broken  away,  she  is  also  a  sublime 
prophecy  of  the  unbroken  and  unin 
terrupted  life. 

An  educational  process  is  pro 
phetic  in  its  very  nature ;  it  is 
always  and  everywhere  a  prepara 
tion;  it  implies  incomplete  develop 
ment  ;  it  involves  the  possibility  of 
growth ;  it  assumes  time,  capacity, 
opportunity,  material  for  work.  The 
school,  the  college,  and  the  university 
not  only  affirm  the  need  of  training 
and  the  capacity  to  receive  it,  but 
also  the  opportunity  to  use  it.  The 
art  school  is  conclusive  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  the  artist  and  the 
practice  of  the  art.  And  not  only 
does  the  educational  process  affirm 
its  reality  as  a  thing  of  supreme  im 
portance  ;  it  also  affords  a  measure 
of  the  dignity  and  magnitude  of  the 
316 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

work  for  which  it  prepares.  An 
occupation  which  involves  rudimen 
tary  manual  skill  requires  a  brief  and 
superficial  training;  but  the  mas 
terly  practice  of  a  great  art  necessi 
tates  long  continued  and  exhaustive 
training.  The  more  difficult  the  work 
to  be  done,  the  more  exacting  and 
fundamental  the  education  required. 
Now,  no  one  can  study  carefully 
the  education  which  men  have  re 
ceived  from  intercourse  with  Nature 
without  a  deepening  sense  of  its 
rigor,  its  complexity,  and  its  pene 
trating  power.  It  has  searched  the 
race  through  and  through ;  tested 
its  strength  ;  exacted  its  obedience  ; 
tried  it  by  suffering,  self-denial,  and 
death  ;  made  inexorable  demands  on 
its  patience,  fidelity,  intelligence,  and 
character.  As  the  race  has  measur 
ably  received  this  training  the  stand 
s'? 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

ards  have  been  steadily  raised ;  as 
intellectual  and  moral  fibres  have 
toughened  the  tests  have  steadily 
become  more  searching  ;  a  stage  of 
development  gained  does  not  mean 
rest,  but  further  advance.  The 
educational  process  is  not  only  un 
ending,  but  it  constantly  grows  more 
severe.  Nature  is  clearly  treating 
the  race  as  if  it  were  immortal,  and 
training  the  individual  as  if  he 
were  imperishable.  This  marvel 
lous  educational  process,  steadily 
advancing  in  complexity  and  spirit 
uality  as  men  grow  in  knowledge, 
does  not  even  give  us  pause  to  cal 
culate  its  rate  of  movement  or  to 
record  its  results.  It  is  indifferent  as 
to  present  achievement;  it  resist- 
lessly  presses  toward  the  future,  — 
every  new  skill  detecting  at  once  a 
new  opportunity ;  every  new  fact 

318 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

bringing  with  it  the  prediction  of 
some  other  fact ;  every  summit 
gained  opening  a  wider  horizon  of 
work  and  achievement.  In  the  very 
heart  of  this  fathomless  and  measure 
less  training  lies  the  affirmation  of 
the  immortality  of  the  nature  that  is 
trained;  in  the  complexity  and  sever 
ity  of  this  inexorable  education  lies  the 
affirmation  of  the  duration  and  the 
dignity  of  the  work  and  the  life  for 
which  it  prepares. 

As  this  process  of  training  becomes 
more  distinct  and  definite  it  also 
becomes  more  clear  that  there  is  in 
every  man  a  capacity  for  receiving 
education  which  is  practically  with 
out  limits  either  as  to  time  or  range. 
One  stage  of  training  succeeds  to  an 
other  without  pause ;  and  no  sooner 
is  skill  secured  in  one  direction  than 
it  begins  to  effect  results  in  other  and 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

unforeseen  directions.  The  hand 
that  holds  a  tool  is  part  of  an  organ 
ism  which  constantly  affects  it  and 
upon  which  it  as  constantly  reacts. 
As  that  hand  is  held  to  its  task,  the 
eye,  the  will,  the  nature  of  the  man 
behind  it  are  all  involved  in  its  work. 
Aims  are  slowly  modified,  the  spirit 
which  goes  into  the  work  deepens 
and  is  often  entirely  changed,  the 
soul  of  the  worker  merges  more  and 
more  with  his  skill,  until  the  work 
becomes  an  expression  of  his  soul. 
Beginning  with  mere  manual  dex 
terity,  put  forth  for  material  rewards, 
the  worker  becomes  more  interested, 
more  intelligent,  more  artistic ;  con 
science  presides  over  his  task ;  the 
imagination  is  awakened,  and  the 
man  is  transformed  by  degrees  from 
the  artisan  to  the  artist.  His  skill 
has  become  spontaneous,  his  aims 
320 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

have  become  spiritual.  He  is  no 
longer  satisfied  with  wages  of  money  ; 
he  demands  wages  of  life  as  well,  — 
growth,  freedom,  power,  influence. 

Thus  the  educational  process  goes 
on  in  the  individual ;  and  the  further 
it  is  carried  the  more  distant  seems 
the  end.  Advance  in  skill  and 
power  does  not  mean  pause  or  satis 
faction  ;  it  means  clearer  vision  of 
higher  things  still  to  be  attained, 
deeper  discontent  with  present 
achievement,  an  expansion  of  intel 
ligence  and  heart  which  nothing  with 
in  the  range  of  the  education  of  this 
present  life  can  satisfy.  In  the 
nature  of  man,  as  in  Nature  herself, 
there  is  a  vast  movement  set  toward 
finer  skills  and  higher  attainments, 
without  provision  for  arrest  of  activ 
ity,  without  recognition  of  finalities 
of  equipment,  without  signs  of  the 

21  32I 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

limit  of  the  movement  or  of  the  ebb 
of  the  tide  which  carries  it  forward. 
That  unfolding  of  all  the  possibili 
ties  of  the  human  spirit  which  is 
accomplished  by  growth  and  which 
is  best  described  by  the  word  culture 
has  been  carried  far  in  the  history 
of  the  race  and  in  that  of  many  in 
dividuals,  but  it  has  never  yet  been 
completed  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  fur 
ther  it  is  carried,  the  richer  its  possi 
bilities  become.  The  life  we  now 
live  is  primarily  and  in  its  essence 
an  educational  process  ;  and  whatever 
enlargement,  deliverance,  and  beauty 
come  to  us  in  any  other  life  must 
be  through  larger  opportunity,  freer 
play  of  power,  and  flawless  achieve 
ment.  No  man  who  has  really 
looked  into  life  can  imagine  a 
heaven  which  is  not,  in  some  form, 
harmonious  and  perennial  growth. 
322 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

This  element  of  prophecy  is  not 
only  present  in  the  educational  pro 
cess  which  Nature  provides  for  men  ; 
it  is  also  written  on  her  own  organi 
zation  and  movement.  The  great 
conception  of  development  has  not 
only  introduced  a  new  idea  of  order, 
progression,  and  intelligibility  in  our 
thought  of  the  world  about  us ;  it 
has  also  vitalized  that  world,  spirit 
ualized  it,  and  discovered  the  direc 
tion  of  its  movement.  When  the 
universe  was  a  mass  of  matter  in  the 
old  material  sense  of  the  word,  —  a 
mass  of  dirt,  —  made  up  of  parts  of 
which  the  mutual  relations  were  not 
apparent ;  distinct  from  man  and 
unrelated,  save  by  antagonism,  to  his 
life  and  growth,  —  it  was  rational  to 
doubt  its  spiritual  significance  and 
to  question  its  educational  value. 
But  the  conception  of  the  unity 
323 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

and  interdependence  of  all  created 
things,  of  their  gradual  advance  from 
the  germ  to  the  perfected  organism, 
of  the  vast  unfolding  of  all  things 
through  the  deepest  and  most  vital 
relationships,  of  the  rise  of  type 
above  type  in  an  ascending  grada 
tion,  of  the  constant  reaction  of  the 
individual  upon  his  surroundings  and 
of  the  general  conditions  upon  the 
individual,  of  the  dependence  of  man 
upon  Nature  and  of  the  interpretation 
of  Nature  by  man  ;  in  a  word,  of  the 
measureless  and  fathomless  movement 
which  has  clothed  the  universe  with 
beauty  as  with  a  garment,  made  man 
master  of  himself  by  unfolding  his 
nature  through  knowledge,  skill,  char 
acter,  set  him  in  living  relations  to 
a  living  universe,  —  this  conception 
carries  with  it  the  knowledge  that  man 
and  Nature  are  not  in  antagonism, 
324 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

that  matter  and  spirit  are  not  in  appo 
sition,  that  mortal  and  immortal  are 
not  contrasting  words,  that  time  and 
eternity  are  not  different.  There  is 
one  all-inclusive  order  which  includes 
man  as  completely  as  it  includes  his 
world  ;  there  is  one  sublime  force, 
of  which  all  forces  are  manifestations, 
which  flows  through  all  things  and 
by  which  all  things  are  sustained ; 
there  is  one  inclusive  movement,  the 
record  of  which  lies  plainly  written 
in  the  history  of  man  and  of  Nature  ; 
it  has  never  paused,  it  will  never 
pause,  and  its  direction  is  from  the 
lower  to  the  higher,  from  the  mate 
rial  to  the  spiritual ;  there  is  one 
inexhaustible  life,  which  floods  the 
universe  with  vitality  and  makes  it 
a  living  order,  and  which  forever 
renews  man  by  forever  unfolding  him 
in  intelligence  and  power.  To  com- 
325 


The  Prophecy  of  Nature. 

prehend  that  order  and  ally  himself 
with  it,  to  recognize  that  life  and 
hold  himself  open  to  it,  —  this  is 
the  philosophy  of  sound,  deep,  pro 
ductive  living. 

This  is  the  spiritual  significance 
of  man  and  Nature  under  a  law  of 
development.  Progression  binds 
them  together  in  divine  fellowship 
and  lifts  their  relationship  from 
plane  to  plane  in  an  endless  ascen 
sion  ;  immortal  growth  is  the  proph 
ecy  which  Nature  makes  for  man. 


THE    END. 


326 


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